The Rambler Stand
by cultureandseptember
Summary: "You didn't come out of hiding even after Rogers reappeared." His tone was a smack to the face and Edith felt every bit of it. "You stayed out of it when Earth was invaded by aliens and a Norse smartass was trying to take over the world. You kept your head under the sand when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell. Figured I would ask nicely." (Bucky Barnes x OC).
1. Chapter 1

**1944**

Edith Sawyer took another drag on the cigarette before grimacing. She flicked the stick away, stepping onto the embers with a mud-covered boot. It was a brand she despised, tasting distinctly of a dance hall outside Harrisonburg—all smoke, but no body. She'd long since figured that the memories of that place would haunt her forever, seeping into each mannerism and preference.

After a couple years out from under Old West's iron fist, she'd come to have a new appreciation for the hall owner's peculiarities. Lord knew, and so did she, that the dance hall was becoming a hell of a lot more preferable to this hellhole.

"When I said I dreamt of coming to Italy, I didn't mean this."

Her vision swirls with the smoke and the rain and the fog as she glanced toward the other girls.

Caroline snorted, supremely unladylike. Whatever would Mrs. Castlefeld say? Edith watched the girl—a recruit with shapely legs and as full of a chest of any Edith had ever seen—take a long puff from her stick, holding the smoke in her lungs for a moment before exhaling.

"Better than Spokane."

"It's a warzone." Betsy huffed with a shake of her head. Bless Betsy for her sweetness. "Spokane does not compare to this."

Edith pushed her hands further into her coat pockets, feeling water start to fall from her wrecked hair. It hardly mattered anyway. The performance wasn't until the next day. Goodness, if only she could get sick and avoid the dancing and the singing altogether.

"Spokane was a nightmare. It gives this a run for its money, warzone or no." When she saw the look in Betsy's baby blues, she held up a hand and waved. "Just because you're from that hellhole doesn't mean that I'm gonna cut it any slack. The slouches there were bastards."

Betsy started to argue, but seemed to think better of it. Edith wondered if perhaps the girl had remembered that encounter with a veritable horde of grabby good-for-nothings. Now, that was a party. Edith still had a scar from the encounter, a light slash across her hand. Men and their damn rings. Her head shook and she refocused on the present.

"—not like we're doing anything here. Can't we just run into town?"

"What town?" Edith just listened to Caroline's biting tone. "Closest towns're probably destroyed, and you think any of the locals wanna welcome us? They're just trying to survive. Think about it, Betsy darlin'." She took another drag and puffed it out into the rain, which immediately washed it from the air. "These men we're performing for? They've been through hell. I mean it. This is the one-oh-seven. We couldn't have ended up with a more battle-exhausted party if we tried."

"Means they need it the most." Edith sighed. "Means they're gonna want a bit more of a show, if you know what I mean. Kick your heels up a little higher." Shifting her shoulders, she felt a little warmer when the coat covered her front a bit more. "Poor Steve ain't gonna stand a chance tomorrow. These fellas aren't gonna have it. They're not gonna be quiet about it either." She glanced to where California was pursing her lips. "What? Say it."

"Some of the fellas might appreciate Steve, if you know what I mean."

Betsy gasped, covering her mouth. Edith had to laugh at the completely scandalized expression on Washington's face. Poor, sweet girl. "Why I never! Caroline, that's—"

"Ladies! Ladies! Come inside now. We have many notes to go over. Hurry along!"

Edith groaned, head falling forward. Water fell onto the back of her neck and she shivered as it ran along her spine, finding just the right path to avoid her collar. It stopped thankfully at her bustier, but the feeling left her feeling crummy. Her arm linked with Betsy's as Caroline dropped her cig and crushed it into the mud. A few of the other girls—Ava, Bea, Mattie, and that one red-head whose name she could never remember—filtered into line after them, muttering under their breath about the terrible weather and Mrs. Castlefeld's frizzing hair, and her fraying wits, too.

Smiling slightly at Ava's very clever likeness of the Show Mother to a wet bulldog, Edith planted herself at the back of the gathered girls. One leg went over the other and she leaned back.

"Are you aimin' to make the Bulldog angry, Powderpuff?" Ava questioned with a coy smile, sitting down as primly as you please. With the humidity, Edith could only guess at how much product was in her hair to hold it in such a style. "You look an unholy mess. Why're you wearing that coat again? Didn't you get a new one in Buffalo?"

"Did you sell your soul for those waves? How do you do it?"

Ava ignored her question, practically preening. "In all seriousness, Mrs. Castlefeld's been in a state since we arrived. Did you see her dress down Grace? She gave her a verbal lashing the likes of which I haven't seen since that brouhaha in Birmingham."

"Excellent alliteration, Ava. Impressive."

Edith watched as the remaining girls filtered into the tent, their smiles fading at the look that the oldest woman was giving them. Edith adjusted her coat again, sinking further into her seat. It wasn't ladylike at all (for shame), but Edith was uncomfortable enough without trying to impress the Show Mother.

"She gave Grace that dressin' down because the little idiot snuck out after curfew in a warzone." Ava nodded mutely in agreement, but cut her eyes toward where Grace sat with her head down. "It was just luck that Beth and Barb weren't caught."

"Ladies! Ladies! Settle down."

Edith tried not to exhale too dramatically, not wanting to draw attention. Her attention flickered around the tent, noting who looked semi-together and who looked like wet gutter rats. It was a fair half and half. Edith knew without doubt that she was in the latter group.

"Now, as you well know, these soldiers have been perhaps one of the most active units on the front. They deserve every proper attention you can spare." There were a couple quiet laughs and Caroline pushed Grace from behind playfully. "I do mean proper attention. Under no circumstances will dalliances be tolerated. There will be no interaction with the men. Do I make myself clear? No dalliances at all."

"Abundantly clear," someone replied sarcastically while another giggled.

"Crystal."

Edith sat forward, resting her arms lazily over her crossed legs. "You know," she whispered while Ava leaned in, "wouldn't it be swell if we could something other than dance for these men?"

At the look her friend shot her, Edith sat back and crossed her arms—looking toward the rain that was beating against the side of the tent.

"—performances tomorrow and the day after. Once those performances conclude, we will move on to a town farther south before boarding the ship back to England. In each of these places, while we are here in Europe, I do not want to see a single girl left alone. You will travel in groups of two or three. You will not sneak out of your designated areas. You will not participate in questionable activities. Need I remind you that there is no drinking? There will be no smoking."

Mrs. Castlefeld paused, sucking a breath as she stood taller. Her posture was commendable, all straight and neat. Edith just raised her brows, the terrible cigarette burning the back of her throat.

"Tonight, you will take dinner and settle in for the evening. Tomorrow will be a long day." Edith almost let out a breath when the woman's sharp eyes focused on her. "Edith, uncross those legs! My God in Heaven!"

In a show, she did just that and primly crossed her ankles, the boots making the action a bit less poised than was expected. It was such an awkward move that several of the girls laughed, stifling their giggles when the older woman went red in the face. Edith shrugged her shoulders and just placed both feet on the ground evenly, dramatically placing both hands serenely in her lap.

"I swear!" Mrs. Castlefeld huffed and marched for the exit.

"Always fun to get her growling. Why am I thus burdened!" Grinning from ear-to-ear, she stood and stretched her back by bracing both hands on her hips and leaning back. "D'ya think she'll send a note to my Pa?" It was a sarcastic comment and Ava swatted at her with a laugh. All of the girls knew that her Pa was long dead, knew since the show in Richmond. "I'll never understand all this, honestly. She acts as if we're all harlots."

"To her, maybe we are. Dancing for money and all that. She thinks we're little more than taxi girls."

Ava grimaced, pushing her hair back over her shoulder. Edith shrugged, making a face at the idea of it all— she was a taxi girl before joining the show. Ava clearly knew she misspoke, apology entering her eyes.

"It's not as if all of us sneak out at night. That woman would think the worst of anyone short of her high society ladies. You think she'd be more of a patriot, right?"

"No kidding." Caroline ran a hand over her blonde hair, sighing as she pulled another cigarette from the pack in her jacket pocket. She rolled it absently between her fingers as the rest of the girls filed out of the tent. "Except you did sneak out in Austin."

Ava choked on nothing.

Stepping out into the rain, the women went their separate ways. While Ava and Caroline went toward the barracks where the girls would be sleeping, Edith pushed her collar up and headed for the mess tent. In her pocket, her fingers wrapped around her switch blade. While women weren't supposed to walk alone in the camp, as claimed by Mrs. Castlefeld, Edith was certain that she'd go without reprimand. After all, she was "worth less than all the other girls combined."

And she could defend herself well enough, Spokane was evidence enough of that fact.

The mess was empty, save for a single man sitting at one of the tables. His hair was out of place, disheveled. An apple core sat on the table in front of him and his pencil moved easily over the paper as he sketched it. A simple sketch for him, so Edith figured that there was something on his mind.

"You know, still-life is so boring. You should try drawing the rain or the mud or something." He turned, blue eyes dark and tired. Edith shrugged her shoulders and grabbed something from the basket near the back of the tent. "You look a little under the weather, fly-boy."

"'m not sick," he muttered. "Just reminded of what these guys are sacrificing. And I'm wearing that…get-up. Tights." Edith sat on the edge of a nearby seat, not really looking at the star of their show—all muscles, broad shoulders, and kindness. She bit her lips together, wringing her hands. Her eyes rose to stare at the top of the tent. "'m not complaining. I just…Doing the show tomorrow feels like a sham."

"Oh, it's definitely a sham. These boys don't need you to tell them to sock Hitler in the face. And Lord knows most them are gonna just be satisfied to seeing some bare knees. The higher we kick our feet, the happier they'll be." Edith looked over to see Steve glaring down at the table-top, ears looking mighty red in the dim light. All this talk of bare knees, she supposed. He was always very easy to fluster. "Don't get me wrong, Steve, but they ain't—"

"How are the girls?"

She snorted a laugh, running her hands through her hair before crossing her arms. A smooth subject change while his ears were still burning. Edith allowed it, leaning back and nodding her head.

"Oh, they're swell. Mrs. Castlefeld caught Grace sneakin' out last night." Steve turned to her, eyes wide and mouth open in shock. As if he was scandalized. "Oh please, don't. You know as well as I do that Grace has a honey back home. She ain't not gonna step out on him. Just got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time by the wrong person. And she shouldn't have been stupid enough to go off on her own after curfew in a warzone anyway, but that's just my common sense showing. Poor Nebraska…"

"Tryin' to keep them in line then, Miss Sawyer?" Steve closed up the sketchpad and stuffed it into his leather jacket, lacing his fingers on the tabletop. Edith shook her head, knowing that was an impossible feat if ever she heard one. Keeping those girls in line just wasn't her storm. "Mrs. Castlefeld been fair lately?"

"Fair? Castlefeld?"

"Well…"

Edith smiled.

A year of knowing this man, even only as much as he allowed, made her confident that he was one of the best men she'd ever encountered. And she'd encountered more than her fair share.

"She's got it in for me. She's used to ballerinas and pretty things, not taxi girls. Can't say I blame her—We're a rougher sort." Steve frowned at the self-deprecation. "Don't get me wrong now, Rogers. I'm not sayin' that we're a bad sort. We are just…more worldly by nature. Can't help that given our circumstances. You get felt up enough and you learn your way around a good swing. Castlefeld's intimidated. And her husband is out here somewhere. You almost have to pity her."

Her Pa always called it "takin' the high road." The high roads always got the most rain, just like this soaked Italian camp. She sat in silence for a while. Steve didn't ruin it with witty repartee or banter. Or questions. He just sat there too, listening to the rain. After a while, it seemed like that rain was the only sound in the world.

"Did you like it?" Edith lifted her head, once beautifully arched brows furrowed. Steve's ears were red again, even in this dim light. "Taxi dancing? I…never went. My friend… It sounded—" His head shook and he seemed unable to look at her for more than a few seconds. Seemed she'd finally been able to break through some sort of wall.

Steve never asked questions other than 'how are you?' and 'how are the girls?'

"Met lots of good fellas. Real good men. Some better than others. Most of them've been shipped off by now. Met lots of good girls. Some of them better than others. It paid the bills. Kept a roof over our heads better than the factory job."

Edith gave a thoughtful hum, trying to think of how she could describe taxiing to a man like Steve Rogers, who seemed like a Golden Boy who would hesitate on the steps of the dance hall before turning around to leave.

"Did I like it? At times, Steve, dancing for a dime was the only thing keeping me going. Keepin' me and my Pa fed. Other times, I had eggs tossed at me for my 'vile work.'" His head shot up and Edith shrugged, focusing on the rain outside and the way it beat into the mud. "It was better than the factory job."

He didn't say anything. Part of her didn't expect him to. Another part, maybe a really foolish part, wanted him to be affronted. To stand up and walk out. She was used to it by now, so what would it matter?

"Only ten cents?" Her attention swung to him, ready to rip into him in defense. Ten cents was good money. But then it registered how he said it. Quiet curiosity. Only curiosity, not accusation. Edith decided then that Steve Rogers really was the best man she'd ever met. "Sorry, I—"

"No, no. You stop that apology right there." Edith waved a hand, laughing a bit at his nervous smile. "Nah, ten cents was the going rate. Worked at a place in Harrisonburg for years under a guy called Old West— Jimmy Westerman was his name—and he was the boss. Said no girl was worth more than ten cents a turn."

Steve, Captain America himself, produced a strangled cough, looking righteously angry in the next moment.

Edith waved him off again, leaning a bit over the table to whisper: "I charged an extra ten on the side for the Lindy."

He chuckled then, eyes wide with surprise. As if he had expected something that would drag that red-eared blush down his neck. Edith saw it as relief and she figured keeping knowledge of that darker side from him was for the best.

Dance halls weren't sunshine and hops.

And the slouches weren't Fred Astaire.

"So you—"

"Miss Sawyer! Are you so intent on driving me mad?"

Edith had to resist letting her head fall forward into her hands. Sucking in a breath, she sighed and sent the actor across from her a dull look. His brows rose in surprise. Castlefeld was at the table's edge a moment later, jowls quivering in suppressed rage. A bulldog.

"I do apologize for her rudeness, Mister Rogers. I will see this young—lady back to her tent." Edith didn't even react when thin bony fingers wrapped around her upper arm. Being manhandled like that was nothing compared to times before. She was bodily hauled from her seat. Across the table, Steve stood. "Have a pleasant evening, Mister Rogers."

"She wasn't harming anyone, just talkin' to me." Mrs. Castlefeld paused at the door and Edith noticed the dark expression that was on his face at the hand that was so roughly grasping her arm. "Let her go. She can walk by herself. Seen her do it before."

Castlefeld released her like she was on fire, barely keeping her glare in check. "I'm sure you have better things to do, Mister Rogers. Excuse us."

She stepped out into the rain, obviously not caring if she was soaked. Edith suspected that the woman just wanted to get herself angrier. Turning back toward Steve, Edith had to smile. It was her case in point, she figured. The fact that he was obviously bothered by it meant more that he could probably recognize.

"I appreciate it, Steve. I'll see you tomorrow for the performance." Edith took half a step out into the storm. A thought flicked through her mind, worry lancing in her chest. "And Steve? Tomorrow's performance…I don't…" She wasn't usually so at a loss for words, but the sadness in his eyes was catching her breath. "Steve, they just want to see the girls. I'm sorry, for whatever they say. For whatever ends up hurting."

Before he could respond, Edith flipped up the collar on her old jacket and hurried across the muddy field between the mess and the male tent to her barracks, where Castlefeld was waiting.

"Alone with our star! Alone with a man! In the middle of a warzone! I have never in all my days…"

Edith tuned her out, walking directly to her bed at the back of the barracks, incredibly aware of all the eyes that were watching. Twenty girls in a single tent. She could already hear the whispers, even as she started pulling the bobby pins from her soaked hair.

"Do you know how that looks? How it makes me look? We are here to support those men out there, not to—"

"We're not in the last century, Castlefeld." Caroline spoke up.

Sitting roughly on the edge of her cot, Edith looked over at the woman who was blustering on and on about respectability and how she never and that there were more worth girls (girls with better training) more than willing to take her place in a heartbeat. Shrugging out of her coat, she settled it over her still-packed luggage.

"And if I step another shiny heel out of line, you'll send me right back to that cesspit I crawled out of?" Castlefeld stopped, glaring. Edith rolled her eyes, staring at the ceiling of the tent for a moment. She slipped her feet from the boots, rubbing them idly as she watched Castlefeld's cheeks flush.

"You think I will not? I've already spoken—"

"Golly, and for the life of me, I can't think of any of the girls we left behind wanting to come to the frontlines."

Edith made a thoughtful noise in the back of her throat, looking over to where Caroline and Ava were sitting on Caroline's bed. Their eyes were wide, and also tired. They'd seen this fight too many times.

"Not to pull anyone into this lovely conversation, but was there anyone besides us who wanted to come here?" She finished massaging one foot and uncouthly went to the other. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "You're welcome to send me back, feeling like you've won some kind of battle. But this isn't a battle. Those boys out there—Those men are fighting for their lives while you're here razzing me. Is it that I'm some harlot, Mrs. Castlefeld, or are your priorities jumbled up?"

Edith idly wondered if Castlefeld's hatred was just a mechanism for dealing with her own fears and stress. Edith considered herself something of an easy target. A woman with no job security was a perfect person to manipulate. It's how so many women got pulled into taxiing in the first place. When the woman turned on her heel and stormed from the tent, she couldn't quite count it as a victory.

"You okay over there, Powderpuff?"

Edith huffed a laugh, pulling her legs up onto the cot and pulling the wool blanket up to her damp shoulders. "Not our worst tiff."

"Certainly in the top five," California spoke. "What got her so riled?"

"Was talking to Steve."

There was a hum of casual acceptance from the girls. Some even groaned, throwing their arms over their eyes. Since Buffalo and the success of the show, the girls had been kept carefully separate from their star. An attractive man with twenty, thirty, forty or more pretty girls? It was only too easy for rumors to start. And rumors didn't help sell war bonds.

Outside of rehearsals and performances, he was isolated. And they were kept corralled away from prying eyes, save for the few who were the go-to picture girls. Caroline with her blond hair, Sally with her brown hair, and Rachel with her red hair often served as the three who posed for pictures in the lobbies of theatres around the states.

"Is he doin' okay? He was lookin' mighty sick the other day." Edith snorted at Ava's question, curling herself further into the blanket. It was dang cold in this tent. "He's eatin' right ain't he?"

Typical Ava.

She was the mother hen of the girls. Careful to make sure others were safe and provided for. She left her children with her mother in Birmingham.

"He said he's fine. I think it bothers him though, bein' here to perform and not to fight, but that's just me."

Practically every girl knew it though. No one ever said anything. It wasn't their place to question. But everyone in the production knew that Steve was more than capable of being out there fighting. The fact that he wasn't was the source of a lot of gossip. Gossip that Edith and many of the girls worked to squash, 'cause it did nothing but hurt him. He knew about the rumors.

"I warned him that the soldiers might…"

She saw Caroline nod and she settled back into the head of her cot, closing her eyes.

As long as she remembered, Jenkins was a dustpan. In the summers, when the fields were brown and the dirt like sand, there'd be walls of dust as high as you could see. Her father called them "black rollers." It'd be as dark as night outside with the wind howling and the dirt choking. Edith remembered a time when she'd visited her aunt's family further west when she couldn't see the hand in front of her face.

Water had been the only thing that could save anyone from all that dust and there never seemed to be enough of it. There never seemed to be enough of anything. Her momma fell sick, after one of those black rollers came through. She died in the cab of their jalopy on the way to the new mine. Her Pa found work there, in the pines. Had a friend from the Great War, got him on the day crew.

Rain always used to clean away the soot and dust.

So, she couldn't bring herself to hate the rain and the way it just kept on and on through the night. If it has just rained more at home, the farm wouldn't've been buried, her ma wouldn't have been buried, and her Pa wouldn't have trekked all the way to Richmond—then Harrisonburg—with every worldly possession they owned on the back of his truck to live in some slapped up shack out in the woods.

"You still awake, Powderpuff?"

She turned her head lazily to the side to see Ava curled up on her side in the cot next to hers, blond hair strewn across the pillow in frizzed waves. The girl's hair never seemed to do well with moisture and it'd be a beast to tame in the morning to get those perfect waves back to their sculpted look. The dim light from the lamp made Ava's face particularly pale, casting shadows where they shouldn't be.

"You alright there, Ava May?"

"Thinking about Billy."

Edith pressed her lips firmly together at the mention of Ava's fella. He'd been deployed right before she joined the chorus, not knowing that he'd also be leaving her with in-laws that had no problem with throwing the girl in a factory. While that might've all been well-and-good, Ava—being the looker that she was—drew the aggressive attention of the foreman. She'd run to Birmingham, to her mother.

"If he got my letters, he knows I'm over here. For the first time in two years, I'm the closest to him I've been."

Edith didn't quite know what to say to that, so she stayed silent. She hated the platitudes of you'll see him again and I'm sure he's okay. There was no guarantee of that. It always seemed hollow and empty whenever she tried to say them. The girls never expected that kind of stuff from her.

"When'd you hear from him last?"

Ava was quiet for a moment, eyes focused on Edith's boots. "Why do you carry those everywhere for?" Despite herself, Edith huffed a laugh, reaching down to fiddle with the damp shoestring. "Mrs. Castlefeld tried to throw them away in Philly, didn't she?"

"And I nearly decked her."

Giving the other woman a considering glance, she settled for the truth.

"I was fifteen when we got to Richmond. Pa had packed us up, moved us there. Said he had worked lined up. Pa took up work with the coal mine out in Harrisonburg after Richmond fell through." It still didn't explain the shoes and Ava was giving her a tiredly flat look. "Ends up, I start workin' at a cattle slaughterin' place. Fancy shoes when I'm not dancing just don't make any sense to me."

And she'd learned pretty quick that fancy shoes could never be chosen over sturdy ones.

"Pa bought me those. Said sturdy shoes like that'd take me to better places." And here she was, on the front lines. "Not sure he had this in mind."

Ava fell asleep not long after. She never answered Edith's question. Edith couldn't seem to go to sleep that night.


	2. Chapter 2

**2015**

The Rambler Stand started to fill out around eight, as it typically did on a Saturday evening. It was why the restaurant closed on Sundays, rest and church. It'd been like that since Old West owned the joint and she kept the tradition, even though church was a little so-going or no-going in recent years. Saturday nights though, they were always the most interesting, the most entertaining, and the most tiring. For her staff of six, three of which were in the back, it was always taxing.

It only got worse during football season, with the restaurant being midway between two rival high schools.

Nothing like the picture shows, but still entertaining. She could hear the dull roar of conversation and music, laughs, and the occasional shout. Some of the pressure of the communal-seating dining room gave way to the porch out front, where folks sat with their iced teas.

"—got a debate brewing at Table Five. The Double Docs are at it again." Vanna Lou perched at the window, running a hand down her purple apron. "The Kids at Twelve are snapchatting it."

Of course they were. The doc debates were legendary. Edith snorted, settling a piece of chocolate silk pie into a small white bowl. She spun to the fridge and withdrew two more boxes.

"You can come help out here anytime, sweetheart. Maybe you can distract some people." Edith didn't know how much distraction she could provide, but— "Come wrangle in the bickering."

And the middle-aged blonde woman disappeared again.

"It's like whack-a-mole." Mike grinned from where he looked to be frying something. "Next time she pops up like that, whack her with a spoon."

"Nah, man. You really want Van to whine all night?" Omar let out a loud laugh, pointing his spatula at Edith. "You should humor her, Ellie. She'll bring it up every time now until ya do what she wants."

Sighing, Edith knew he was right. Vanna Lou was the motherly figure of the restaurant (not knowing Edith's age) and took it upon herself to be as domineering as she could manage with so little a frame. So she went ahead and prepared what she knew would get the docs to settle down.

"You gonna go for it, El?"

"I'm out. Obie, take over. Corner!"

She balanced four pies on her serving platter, weaving through mismatched tables, tossing a smile over her shoulder when she saw a group of regulars at the corner booth. The place was thriving with energy, the jukebox cranking out tunes that got people up and out of their seat near the stage at the back.

"Y'all behave over there!" There was a round of laughs and she zeroed in on the Doctors usual table at the window, coming to stand in front of it. "What's this I hear about an argument, fellas?" Her attention flickered over to where the group of teenagers (fondly called 'The Kids') sat holding up their camera phones and giggling. "Y'all gonna keep arguin' or do you want some pie?"

She sat a pie slice pointedly in front of Dr. Jamal.

"Can't we do both? Been comin' here ten years and we can always do both."

Dr. Jamal was a nice old man who worked at the community college down the street. He was the head of the music department now, a jazz pianist the likes of which she had never heard before. He leaned back and looped his thumbs into his pockets.

"C'mon, Ellie. You know it ain't right what happened." She just raised her brows, settling the pies in front of the other three men. Apple, caramel apple, silk. "It's a disaster and you and I both know they ain't gonna do a thing about it. Not a dang thing. They didn't do anything after New York. Why would they do a thing now?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone. What more do you want them to do?" Dr. Ryan was Jamal's favorite sparring buddy. Their friends, fellow staff members at the school, just watched the exchange, clearly comfortable with taking a backseat to the conversation. "They'll have an inquiry."

"Doesn't mean it'll do jack, David." Dr. Jamal took a large bite of his pie and smiled slyly around it. Edith took a breath and began to turn, knowing where this was going to head. Best to get the hell out of— "Whaddya think, Ellie? Got any opinions on it?" He knew she did.

She waved her hand and dismissed it, tucking the tray under her arm. "I got plenty o' opinions, Doc. They don't help me run this joint, so they ain't worth much thought."

He snorted, shaking his head as he gestured toward the far wall. Seeing his point and noticing a couple other tables, filled out with new or newly-regular customers, listening into the exchange, Edith pursed her lips and shifted her weight.

"Gotta appreciate a good hero. All the heroes. Besides, wasn't it leaked that HYDRA was at fault for this mess?" She wondered if her tone was getting a bit defensive. As an afterthought, she turned and gave the old men a smile. "Doesn't help that Captain America is one fine looking man"

She heard The Kids give a whoop before dissolving into hysterics.

Edith rolled her eyes, deciding to move over to talk with them for a bit. They sat a bit straighter, as they always did. The Kids respected the place, she made sure of it. There was five of them, each from the high school to the north.

"Hey, Miss E." The skinniest kid—she really did need to make him eat more, he was bones—held up a hand for her to shake. Good manners. "It's real busy tonight." She moved to settle herself on the open part of the bench seat, grinning at the kids.

"It's busy every Saturday, Gabe."

Gabe… She quickly looked to where Maddie sat, bracing her arms on the table, pushing that thought from her mind.

"Your mom doin' okay, hun?"

"She had chemo this week."

Edith nodded, smiling sadly. "Well, you know the drill. Y'all need anything, you call me. You got my number. I can bring some food over. It's not a problem and you know it. Tell your mom."

Maddie just nodded, eating a spoonful of pie and lowering her head. Her attention focused on Avery next, always finding him to be the most personable of the group. He always seemed to shine with energy, reminding her of others from the past that seemed to carry the same spirit of exuberance. This Saturday was no different.

"You stayin' out of trouble, Ave?"

"Nope." He laughed. "Hey, Miss E? Can we mess with the jukebox?"

Edith pushed herself up, giving him a stern look as her hands went to her hips. "On the two conditions: one, no non-stop showtunes. You annoyed the ever-lovin' hell out of everyone last time." They burst into laughter, guffaws mixed with giggles. "Two, no Lil' Jon. If you're gonna pick a rapper, you're gonna pick someone good." All eyes went to Gabe, who must've been at fault for the Lil' Jon fiasco. "And if you play 'What's New Pussycat' again because of that one comedian or whatever, I'll boot all of you to the curb."

She was already halfway across the dining room when she heard them chorus that it was 'three conditions!' She waved them off regardless. She trusted them not to get too crazy, and at this time of night, some new music was sorely needed. Pandora had already played the same song twice.

She could only listen to Mumford & Sons so many times before she wanted to throw something.

Instead of heading back to the kitchen—she was sure Mike, Obie, and Omar could handle it since the tables were slowly starting to empty—she went out to the porch. Winnie, bright little pixie Winnie, held the door open for her, grinning as she headed inside to get more drinks. "Everyone doing alright out here? Behavin' yourselves?" The regulars chorused their very innocent agreements.

"Ellie, c'mon over here."

She walked over to where a middle-aged man held out an arm for a hug. He was about two times or three times her size, all muscle and with a beard that made him maybe the most intimidating man in the restaurant. Except, Quint was one of the kindest and gentlest men she'd ever known. They always traded tattoo stories. She gave him a quick embrace before leaning down to hug his wife as well.

"Jimmy here was just tellin' us about all the shenanigans goin' down up in D.C. He was there when the whole thing happened."

Edith jerked her head around to the man in the adjoining rocking chair. He held up his hands.

"I'm okay, Ellie. I was at the Kennedy Center when it happened. Saw the whole damn thing."

Edith felt like the breath had been knocked out of her, moving to lean against the railing with her arms crossed. She eyed him critically, glancing to his fiancée, who was nodding along with a nervous expression on her face. Her hands trailed to her stomach absent-mindedly. Somehow, Edith had thought that her customer base would go unscathed. That this little community had somehow avoided the disaster in Washington. That they would somehow avoid all of it.

"You're not hurt?"

"I'm fine," he defended.

She'd known Jim Torrent for years, since she'd taken over the place back in '05. He lived outside of Washington, made the hour commute just to stay away from the dangers of downtown.

"Coulda been a lot worse."

Well, yeah. She knew that, but it didn't change how bad it was. She'd thought— A nervous thrill wound through her stomach, tangling somewhere beneath her heart.

"We had to keep the kids downstairs so they wouldn't see. I got up and out when the helicarrier started to fall." A tense silence fell over their end of the porch. Edith kept her arms crossed, eyes studying her shoes for a few moments. "Saw the Cap take a tumble in the water. He's lucky he survived."

Steve had survived, she knew. He'd been in the hospital for a week. All she knew from the news was that he was alive. For a few hours though, just like back when the aliens attacked New York, she'd thought…

But Steve seemed capable of surviving anything, didn't he?

Except, how was he surviving?

S.H.I.E.L.D. had been HYDRA all along, and he'd been working for them. They'd hunted him. The whole idea of it set her on edge, made her stomach church with anger and guilt.

She just—

Edith nodded, plastering on an almost-believable smile. "He is the Cap after all." She pushed off the railing. "Can I get y'all anything from inside?"

"Nah, we're gonna call it a night. Gettin' too old to hang out like teenagers."

"Yeah? I got five inside you can compare notes with."

As if on cue, Macklemore started rapping. Her head dropped, a laugh escaping her at the whoop the kids let out.

"Speaking of…I need to go wrangle some wayward youths." They laughed at her put-upon tone. Her attention refocused on Jim. "Glad you're okay."

"Me too."

The rest of the night went on as usual. Customers cleared out around midnight. The stragglers were put into cabs and sent on their way. Eventually, it was an empty dining room and five more songs set on the jukebox. Each Saturday, The Kids did this. They'd play whatever and then five songs for the cleanup. It was their way of tipping, she figured, since they never did leave tips. She knew why though and never held it against them. Those five never did have steady or good home lives. A few quarters spent on songs were all they could give in return for a safe Saturday night. It was part of the reason she always made sure that Vanna Lou got her deserved tips right from her pocket.

As the owner, it was her job to make sure everyone was taken care of.

Taken care of in the way that Old West had never, ever cared to do.

She'd sworn to herself, when she started renovating the joint in '05, that she'd make the memories new.

Make them better.

The old dance hall no longer reminded her of the slouches and ten cents a swing.

"We're out, Ellie! Kitchen's prepped. I'll be in Monday!"

She heard Mike and Obie heading out the back to their cars, leaving Omar finishing up the dishes. Maddie and Vanna were finishing getting the trash together, leaving with calls of 'see you next week.' Before long, she was wrapping up mopping, moving all the tables back to their proper positions. It was down to a science at this point, each person knowing their exact tasks and what had to be done before heading home for the night. Zach left around one, tossing out a casual reminder that he was visiting his grandparents in Richmond the next week and that he'd already let Adam know to come in for the extra shifts.

She intended to hire Adam full-time after this. The young man hung around enough anyway.

By the time the fifth song ended—Def Leppard's "Rock of Ages"— she was done with the last tasks.

Two trash bags had been left for her to toss on the way to her truck and then she could head home for a shower and a much-needed day off. A much needed day to think. Edith flipped the lights, grabbed the two bags (the lightest ones, she smiled), and sang the chorus of the last song as she stepped out the back door, pushing the keys into the lock before turning.

"Still rollin', keep rollin'."

At least Steve was still alive, she reminded herself.

He'd survived. At least he—

Everything went white and she hit the ground, dropping like a bag of potatoes. Sucking in a breath, Edith struggled to get up, pushing herself backwards as quickly as possible until she was leaning against the door. The pain was so intense that it was hard to breathe. There was a figure standing over her, a looming presence in a black hoodie and darkness underneath. She blinked, looking at the knife in his hand as he frantically brandished it. It glinted off the parking lot lights. He wasn't paying attention to the fact that her hand was behind her back.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

What a stupid kid.

"Give me the money!"

Though her ears were still ringing and her eyes were bleary— what the hell did he hit her with? a brick?—she managed to whip the gun from under her shirt, aiming it up at him with steady accuracy that startled him into an unsteady step back. His hood fell away from his face.

He looked young, face still too-round, eyes still too-innocent. Too young. Young, but stupidly determined. But scared. So scared of that gun she was holding. Scared of consequences and mortality. Edith sighed, watching his hand shake as he brandished the knife like a sword.

Stupid kid.

"You think I ain't done this dance before? No. I'm ain't givin' you shit. Get out of here. Try to turn your life around."

His mouth opened, a glare flickered across his face, and he took a hesitant and stupid half-step forward. She flicked the safety off, reaffirming her hold, aiming for his shoulder. Her other arm came up to hold the gun steady and sure.

"Knife to a gun fight, punk. Screw off. Now. I don't wanna hurt you, but I'll do it."

At the low tone of her voice and the steadiness of the gun, he took off running, making a break for the trees out behind the trash bin. When he disappeared out of the lights, Edith closed her eyes and rested her head against the door, lowering the gun to rest on her outstretched leg. She just sat there for a while, until her heart calmed down and she felt like she could stand without her legs shaking. She left the gun on the ground while she stood.

It'd been a while since she'd—

It was taking way more effort than it should have to stand up, requiring her to brace herself on the door and crawl her way upright. Readjusting her shirt, she bent down to retrieve the weapon, settling it at the small of her back again with the safety on. Around her feet were bits of concrete, bits that might've been a clump at some point before he tried to bash her skull in.

Which meant that—

"Son of a gun." Edith huffed, stumbling a bit as she looked out into the trees. "Really?"

The concrete block he'd struck her with shattered on impact like a snowball.

If she'd been anything but what she was, Edith would've been dead.

Story of her damn life.

She picked up the trash and started walking, tossing one bag in and then the other before she went very still, eyes still on the tree line behind the bins.

Something was still wrong. She could sense it, feel it.

Something in the air felt off from most nights, like something invisible was lurking just out of sight. Her eyes skittered around, hands itching to get the gun back out. Just to feel better about it. The tips of her fingers made contact with the gun when it seemed like the air cleared a bit.

Ghosts. Ghosts and senses of a long, long time ago. Maybe it was Steve's predicament that reminded her. Made her mind dream up enemies where they weren't.

Enemies that never seemed to die.

She stared at a space in the trees for a moment longer before yanking the shirt back over the gun, walking to her truck, tossing her purse in, and taking off. She swung out of the parking lot like the Devil was on her heels, spitting gravel into the street. That punk was probably hiding in the underbrush, just waiting for her guard to be down.

Her head wasn't even aching anymore.

* * *

"You're still not gonna go see him?"

"It's not my fight."

It was twilight when her cell rang. Colton had taken off around mid-afternoon, telling her that he'd be back to finish the railing around the remaining portion of the porch the following day. His errands were important after all. Edith sat in her folding chair, now comfortably situated on the newly finished outlook porch with her feet propped up on the fresh wood railing. Her cell rattled in the chair's cup holder, Adele's newest single tearing through the speakers. Just as she went to reach for the phone, it stopped ringing.

Her stomach twisted, nervous energy pooling around her heart.

"You're a tough woman to find."

Edith sat forward and lowered her feet from the rail. She could see him in the light from the porch, at the bottom of the stairs. The whirring of the cicadas seemed to almost drown the thunder in her ears, the sound of explosions and shelling and screams. There was a dull hum of boats making their way to the docks on the other side of the lake. Her throat suddenly felt dry, remembering the news and radio reports, the backchannel whispers.

She saw him slip his cellphone into his jacket pocket.

"I'll give you this: Howard gave you a pretty sound cover."

He started to climb the stairs, bracing his arms on either side as he leaned forward one step down. Old leather jacket and a beanie too warm for this humid evening. The sunglasses were a new touch.

"I'm assuming you've heard about what's been going on."

She tried, she honestly tried, not to feel trapped, but the frantic feeling was making her hands shake and she gripped the fabric arms of her chair, setting forward.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Do I look like I'm kidding, Sawyer?"

"Honestly," she paused. His brows rose in question, daring her to finish the thought. Edith ignored the thrill of nerves as she released her hold on the chair's fabric. What the hell, he was here anyway. "Honestly, you look like shit."

He snorted.

"Can't say it's good to see you, Nick."

He shrugged, a rare sarcastic smile pulling at his lips.

"Yeah, well. This isn't really my idea of a good weekend either, Sawyer. I'd much rather be watching a game, drinking a beer. You know, the good life. Instead, I'm here." Without an invitation, he moved to unfold another of the fabric chairs, roughly setting it on the other side of the cooler. "Don't act like you're surprised I showed up."

"Considering you were supposed to be dead, yeah gotta say that I am." She sighed. "Frankly, I was expecting a kraken."

Cut off one head…

Edith let her eyes track away from him when he didn't speak immediately, eyes focusing on a log floating out in the lake. The evening ripples might've been calming. She heard the cooler lid open and then the low hiss of a can opening. Well, he at least got the beer he wanted.

"Sorry to disappoint you." She snorted at his tone despite the nervousness, feeling it fade with every wash of waves on the shore. "We're back to basics, back to the heart of it. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s not going away. It's…starting over, starting fresh, starting with people we can trust."

"Too many stubborn people in S.H.I.E.L.D. for it to actually be disbanded anyway."

Edith relaxed a bit into her seat. She saw him nod in her peripheral vision. Howard and Peggy lived and breathed for S.H.I.E.L.D., and, of course, Nick would restart it. Of course.

"So you're here to…what? Recall me? I'm retired. Old folks like me aren't cut out for field work, Nick. I'm not a field agent. Never was."

"You didn't come out of hiding even after Steve Rogers reappeared." His tone was a smack to the face and she felt every bit of it. "You stayed out of it when Earth was invaded by aliens and a Norse smartass was trying to take over the world. And you kept your head under the sand when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell." Edith tried not to let his tone affect her too much, but she turned to face him anyway. His no-shit expression was enough to make her dig her heels in a bit more. "No, you're not gonna come out of hiding just because I ask nicely."

"Didn't anticipate you asking at all, Nick. Much less 'nicely.'"

"I'm a nice person." He said it in a very not-nice way. "We have intel on Sergeant Barnes. You want in?" Nick Fury eyed her, sizing up her reaction. "See, Sawyer? This is me asking nicely."

Edith kept her eyes on the water.

The lake could burn and she would watch the flames instead.

Anything to keep Nick from seeing just how unsettled she really was.

Sergeant Barnes. Not The Winter Soldier.

Edith gritted her teeth.

"Stark and Carter got you out. You'll only come back for your own reasons, not mine. I know that and I don't like to waste my time. It's not like I could throw that one man speech at you and hope something sticks."

Edith snorted under her breath, taking a drink of her beer as it grew even darker outside.

"Truth is, I'm not even Director anymore. Don't have the ability to recall you even if I wanted to. But Stark told me that if anything ever happened, I just needed to look for some ghosts. You're the first person that came to mind. The new Director doesn't have time to chase ghosts, so here I am."

"Consider myself more of a zombie, if I'm honest."

Sighing, she nodded and pushed herself up to stand, looking down at him in the dim light of the porch lantern.

"Me and Howard used to argue about rest stops on the highway. He said they were liminal spaces. Used to argue about it for hours. They freaked him out. Said that was where I was from once. Made me a rest stop. 'Course you probably already know all about that."

Pursing her lips, she leaned against the new railing and crossed her arms, looking down at Nick Fury with a sort of calm she hadn't felt in twenty-some-odd years.

It was high time her past caught up to her.

"Come on in, Nick."

His brows rose. "Coming out of retirement?"

"Giving an old colleague a place to land. Let's not push it. I've got a restaurant to run. Got enough of S.H.I.E.L.D. shenanigans in my youth." She held the back door open for him and he stood slowly, turning to look back at her but not moving. Edith sighed, shaking her head. "My guess is that you're well off the grid by now, Nick. But you need access to the grid. Your network—"

"And you still got that access thirty years out?"

Edith stood a little straighter, the shock and wariness starting to wear off. Now, she was slipping back into a comfortable suit, a comfortable medium from years and years of practice.

This wasn't Edith the Taxi Girl, USO high kicks and grapevines.

Or Eleanor 'Ellie' from The Rambler Stand.

"If you came here for a vacation, Fury, I would've chosen somewhere on the coast."

"Just came from the gulf. I'm not one for tanning."

He walked up, stopping just outside the door. Edith stood at his height, not taking her eyes from his sunglasses. After just a moment of looking her over, from her sweaty t-shirt to her ratty jeans, he stepped inside. The air conditioning brushed her face as she followed, a chill rushing over her shoulders as she moved past the dining room table. She kicked off the tennis shoes in the corner.

"You really took the Suzy Homemaker routine to heart, didn't you?"

She turned as he snatched up a cookie from the plate on the table. Her arms crossed.

"Never got the chance to just be Edith Sawyer. I was always someone else."

"You're not her now either, Ellie." His eyes rolled and he brandished the cookie. "You're still a shit baker, Edith Sawyer."

Edith just snorted, finally allowing her heart rate to settle and slow. This was happening, whether she wanted it to or not. The familiarity of it was enough to ease her mind if only slightly. Especially knowing that she had a couple Aces up her metaphorical sleeves. Things that Fury knew nothing about. Having one up on Nick Fury was always rare.

"So, what? You leave S.H.I.E.L.D. and hide here for nearly thirty years before buying your old haunt?"

"Eleanor Sawyer bought that restaurant. She's 29 from Spokane. Worked at her grandpa's place in Washington until he died and decided to move out east to start her own hole-in-the-wall." Edith crossed her arms. "I'm a little better at the undercover routine than you seem to think, Nick. I got a couple other degrees under a couple different names. I haven't been twiddling my thumbs. I've been living my life."

"You're damn lucky that HYDRA hasn't come knocking yet."

"I've had my share of close encounters with HYDRA and its underlings."

Fury stayed quiet for a long moment, watching her with an almost bored expression. "We're gonna build back from the ground up. HYDRA is not gonna grow any of its damn heads in this new organization. I'll do whatever I have to—to keep that from happening."

There was an undercurrent there, a current that demanded action, demanded her presence.

Demanded her presence for the rebirth of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Edith crossed her arms and leaned on the counter, tracing her foot over the black-and-white tiles under her toes.

"After Janet died, I had very little reason to stay involved. With her gone and Dum-Dum on the ropes, then Howard— it was time for me to throw in the towel." With a sigh, she let her head hang forward. "It's been thirty years since I've seen any action, Fury. I'm not the same person you knew back then. I'm just a lonely retiree widow livin' on a back road."

"I don't know about that, Sawyer. Since I came through that door, I've counted three hidden cameras and two microphones. I've seen about eleven—no, twelve—hidden weapons. Thirteen if you count the gun behind your back. Do you want me to keep going?"

Her head continued to hang forward, a reluctant smile pulling at her lips.

He hadn't changed a bit. Always had been one of the best in the game.

"You're a lot of things, Agent Sawyer. Out of the game isn't one of 'em."

Sighing, Edith decided to just give up. A puff of a laugh left her before she stood straight again.

"You're really something, kid. I'll give you that." Ignoring the indignant look he gave her, she turned on her bare heel and walked toward the formal dining room. "C'mon, soldier. I've got something you might find interesting."

"Not in the mood for games," he muttered as she walked past him. "I am so not in the mood for games."

Stopping in front of the over-filled bookshelf, Edith reached up and pulled at the worn copy of War and Peace that sat at the end of the row. "I've never been good at poker. Used to play with Dum-Dum and Gabe. I always lost."

The reaction was instantaneous. The bookshelf shifted and then parted, revealing a metallic wall upon which a keypad rested. She turned and gave her old colleague a look. It'd been decades, but she would never, ever get tired of that expression: Nick Fury was surprised and, from that unflappable man, it was like winning the lottery.

"You want to know about games, Nick? Try playing the longest game of Battleship with a Russian hitman bent on your eventual and inevitable assassination." Her thin fingers pressed in a fifteen digit passcode, ending with the numbers 1944. "How is Tony by the way? Keeping out of trouble? Nah, nevermind. I bet he's having a hard time getting over that battle. Looked like a rough one, from what I saw. He's been havin' a rough go of it."

"From what you—"

"I'm glad you're checking in on him. He needs that. Pepper will keep him straight, at the very least. If not her, then maybe Steve can jostle him out of it."

A smirk pulled at her lips as she stepped into the elevator. When she turned, Edith saw Nick's slack-jawed expression.

"Remember Grenada?"

"Retired, huh? And don't bring up Grenada. This is nothing like Grenada." He stepped into the elevator and the doors shut behind him. Edith didn't bother to move from where she was leaning against the metallic wall, one of her bare feet pressed up on the paneling. "You know…This doesn't look very retired, Sawyer. Actually, this is the exact opposite. This is very not retired. What the hell is this?"

"I told you. I'm not fit for the field. Not anymore. I got my fill of the field. They got me out, helped me relocate here. Gave me as many identities as I needed. I was Canadian for a while, a long while. I spent some time at Red River helping out where I could. I spent some time in Australia and Korea. I told you: I haven't been twiddling my thumbs."

Walking out, Edith left Nick to trail after with his surprise barely hidden behind his emotionless façade. What a lark. He was trying to act unimpressed and, though many wouldn't be able to see it, he was failing miserably.

"Can't take all the credit, of course. Howard designed it. I've kept it updated over the years though since he died. Took some fancy work to get my hands on some of this tech, but damn, can you really blame me? Tony's a brilliant young man. Of course I'm going to invest in his tech…or steal it. Well, invest is a better term. Keeps him on his toes."

That 'young man' was over forty now though and the thought was utterly sickening.

She held Maria's hand when he was born.

Turning, Edith crossed her arms over her chest.

"I've been guarding S.H.I.E.L.D.'s back, Nick, taking out a few threats that you couldn't see."

"You missed a pretty big one."

Edith nodded solemnly. "I know... Every time we got close, it'd disappear and we'd have to start all over again. You all never saw us in there though and it made me concerned for your computer and tech team. There should've been records. For all that we were doing, as many breadcrumbs as we left, there was nothing. Do a little better with your IT recruiting this time around. That's why I sent Hamilton to get you sorted out."

"Hamilton? You mean the tech analyst? My tech analyst?"

"The same. My guy," Edith shrugged.

Padding across the concrete floor, she grabbed the tablet from the table top and swiped the screen. On the heads-up, images appeared: six different people with various strategic positions in agencies the world over—all of whom were in Edith's service.

All of whom were loyal to her for one reason or another.

Smirking smugly, Edith turned and leaned haphazardly against the table.

She didn't bother to look in Fury's direction, but she could imagine the look of astounded offense on his face.

"Taylor Hamilton's been on my payroll for seven years, ever since you recruited him as a matter of fact. The only reason you have him is because I sent him."

Glancing to her right, Edith looked at the young man's face and imagined him as she had found him all those years ago, broken and bruised in an alley outside of Chicago. Now, he looked healthier with his face full and his auburn curls flyaway, clashing almost ridiculously with his suit and tie.

"Taylor's safe. He's got a cover and enough money to make it."

He'd made contact after the Washington attack, swinging by the restaurant on his way out west. He had a cover now and should have been halfway to the safe house in Saint Louis by now. Colton would make sure to get the money to his brother: Taylor. She'd handed over all the new identity materials for the boys to go under until it was safe.

His attention swayed to one of the screens and he deadpanned, sighing. She followed his gaze to the opposite screen and smiled, dipping her head forward to grin at the floor. Nick's voice was incredulous.

"Are you—" He shifted and placed his hands on his hips. "Are you seriously telling me that you recruited that son of a bitch?" Edith threw her head back and laughed. "That's Gabriel Rivera. Coulson tried to recruit him two years ago. He works for you?"

"'Works' is a… debatable term," she responded slowly. Fury looked unimpressed with her hedging. She sighed and gave a weak laugh, which felt more like a cough. "Gabe does what he wants. Luckily, what he wants is often what I want." At the look Nick sent her, Edith held up both hands. "Fine. Gabriel owes me…a lot. Owes me his life really. All of them do. The things they do for me are their choice. I don't blackmail them into it or pay them. I just request. It's amazing what a little kindness can do—"

"Manipulation, you mean. I've seen this kind of thing before, Edith. It's—"

"No," Edith retorted. "I mean kindness. Goodness, kindness, honesty. Hope. Those virtues aren't gone from society, Nick. They're everywhere. We've just been living in the dark so long that they're hard to see. We see all the terror and horror that the world has to offer. If we open up our eyes though, you can see that people really do care. People really can be good and beautiful. I— Just couldn't—be in the darkness anymore."

He stared at her for a moment before snorting. Whatever.

Rolling her shoulders, Edith flicked her head from side to side to release the tension. "Anyway, Gabriel got into a bad way with some worse people—KGB, the Chinese and Koreans. Hell, even MI-6. I hate MI-6…They all wanted him, bad. I bailed him out and helped him recover. Took him in. Like I did with all of them. His bedroom's upstairs, if you're curious. He works at the restaurant when he's in town."

Before he could ask his question, Edith gestured toward the left where a door was situated. He didn't look like he quite believed it, but Edith pushed off the counter and strode forward. "That door over there leads to a passageway that connects to a campsite about half-a-mile up the road. One of my chefs, Obie, checks it twice a week on the off-chance something happens. He has the false identities ready to go, for anywhere they're needed. Obie's one of the best forgers in the game. The house is rigged. It's tighter than Fort Knox."

Edith gave a faraway smile.

"Howard always did like to look out for me, in his own special way."

Her eyes trailed over the various screens and concrete. In her mind, she could hear the swing of the trumpet and the rhythm of the piano.

"Just never seemed to go about it the right way. But when he got it right, he got it right."


	3. Chapter 3

**1944**

A stage had been set up near the back of the camp, out of the way. It reminded her a bit of the gathering area just outside of Richmond, near the train tracks. She could remember that place clearer than most, trees in the sky and bluegrass. Her father was a picker, the only thing he ever gave himself. He played an old mandolin, sat it on his thick chest and played it with more feeling than he'd ever confessed to out loud. All the men in that group died by the time she was twenty, but she could still remember their music clearer than most other things in her life. She pinned her hair back and then settled the sequined little hat onto her head, spinning in her seat to watch Caroline do the same.

"At least it stopped raining."

"Doesn't look to last too long." Bea sighed as she fretted with her auburn curls. "Walking in this with these heels? Watch your ankles, ladies."

Edith snorted, finishing with the hat. She had kept her factory pants on underneath the skirt, not quite willing to bare her legs to the cold just yet. A few of the other dancers had brought their wool blankets from the barracks, throwing them over their legs in an effort to stay warm.

"Say, Delaware, you got any more of that rouge? Remember to get dolled up. These boys deserve it." There was a smattering of agreement as Betsy handed her the compact. "Much obliged."

"You think they're gonna care that we're wearing so much make-up?" Ava questioned. "We could go out there with potato bags over our heads and they wouldn't care."

She had a point.

"Potato bags might make it more interesting." Edith smiled when a few of the girls snickered. "If we could wear the potato bags, maybe we could do a little more than standing like so and kicking up our heels."

Better mobility, she figured, as she crossed one leg over the other. She quieted down when Mrs. Castlefeld came into the backstage tent, focusing on rouging her cheeks and painting on the right amount of lipstick. Bright red against pale, pale skin. When Steve entered the tent a moment later in costume, Edith caught his eye for a single second, shot him a dry smile, and focused again on prep.

Bless Steve's heart, this was going to be a disaster.

"Miss Sawyer! Is there a reason you're wearing those dreadful things?"

Finishing her lipstick, Edith leaned back and glanced down at her pants. "It's cold."

Castlefeld just huffed, obviously choosing to give up. Edith just smiled, pushing herself off the bench to check her shield and helmet next to where Steve was standing. He cast her a quick look, a little smirk pulling at the corners of his lips.

"Heard the commotion last night. No walls, no secrets."

"Her voice carries, doesn't it?"

"I didn't know you volunteered. I thought the girls were told who was going."

There was a strange note of respect in his voice that Edith hadn't quite expected. It gave her pause and she lowered the helmet she was holding, brows furrowing. He held up both hands as if felt like he'd misspoken.

"I know the pay was higher 'cause of the—"

"I didn't come over here because of the pay, my Lord in Heaven." Edith shook her head, looking out of the flap to see men walking past. They were hunched, weary, tired, and her heart hurt just looking at the gaunt faces that passed in the haze. "Steve, none of us are just doing this, here, for the money. Those guys out there have been through hell." He had to know that though. Surely he knew that. So, she looked up at his face, looking for that understanding she knew was there somewhere. "Steve, if we can make them forget for one measly second where they are, the hell they've been through, then we've done our job."

He nodded, resolution in his eyes as his stance straightened. It was clearly something she recognized from years of dancing with soldiers. Then, the five minute warning was given and Castlefeld was upon her like a hurricane.

"Get those off!"

Edith grimaced and set to making final preparations.

When they took the stage, it was to wolf whistles and jeering enthusiasm. Edith had learned over the years to take performances and audiences in stride, but this was no crowd of Middle America women and children. Next to her, Betsy missed a step and Edith discretely grabbed the girl's elbow to keep her from toppling off the narrow stage. She gave a showy flourish to cover the mistake. Betsy gave her a small, grateful smile.

She thought maybe four or five men saw it in total, and their eyes stayed on her for the whole rest of the show.

Edith had thrown them a smile halfway through the can-can, winking at the one who had actually clapped at her quick save.

Then, the booing started as soon as Steve got out a few words.

Edith struggled to keep her smile up, but shifted on her heels. He was trying. Genuinely, like with all things he did, he was trying. Like some good fella, he was trying. Nevertheless, the booing continued and Steve's smile fell away. He disappeared backstage and Edith fell into step again, teeth grinding as her smile did indeed falter. Ava sent her a look and Edith realized her mistake, fixing the mask on anew as they sang again.

One song, three damn times.

The hootin' and hollerin' was the stuff of a quaint, shy gal's nightmares.

It was a good thing to be used to such lewdness.

Sometimes, the Taxi girl just has the better experience.

After the show, unlike the usual quick exit, the girls were allowed to mingle close to the stage. Men brought comic books for girls to sign, as an excuse to just talk. Edith was surprised, honestly, that Mrs. Castlefeld allowed such 'co-mingling,' as she called it. She overheard a few propositions, but most of the officers kept the men in line and at least somewhat respectful.

For her part, Edith just wanted to get back into a pair of pants and away from all this cold air and rain.

It was getting to be too much, grating on her nerves just as much as the high-pitched voices some of the girls were putting on around the soldiers. That kind of talk didn't win any favors.

Too high or too sultry, the girls overcompensated either way.

When Edith turned, fully intent on heading back to the backstage area, she caught sight of an obviously battle-scarred solider near the edge of the stage.

"Miss." He signaled for her and Edith had to admit that she was surprised.

Not that she didn't get admirers- she did- but none so quickly humbled her.

Walking to the edge of the stage left, she was greeted by a small group of four soldiers— all of which were sporting some kind of injury. One had an arm slung up. Another had bandages covering the whole right side of his handsome face. She recognized them as a few of the guys she had winked to mid-show.

"Well now, howdy, fellas." She knelt down to get closer, keeping her short skirt decent as she lowered to her knees. They seemed to appreciate it, the closeness it allowed. "Enjoy the show?"

"Good catch," the one who was leaning on a crutch complimented. He looked young, too young to be fighting on a front line. Too young for this Italian hellscape. Reminded her of Little Andy back in Harrisonburg, sixteen and too small for his leather jacket. Was Andy on a front line too? Probably, somewhere. "Thought she was gonna dive face-first before you caught her. Quick thinking."

Edith tapped her temple, smiling. Considering the fact that Caroline's group was getting grabby over on stage right, hers were rays of sunshine in all this rain. Battered sunshine with lots of clouds, but sunshine nonetheless. "Couldn't let another USO girl drop like that. Then you fellas would've really gotten a show." With a theatrical sigh, Edith shook her head. "Our dear Betsy Blue is a crybaby. Would have wailed to the tune of 'Star-Spangled Man.'"

"Can you sign tinkerbell's comic, sweetheart?" Edith tried very hard not to narrow her eyes at the balding man's words, taking his proffered comic without comment. "Did you all do his hair and makeup too?"

She caught that the other three were rather embarrassed by the one. They eyed her for her reaction, so she figured…

"Well, sure, darlin'. What's better than twenty beautiful broads combin' your hair and fixin' your costume?"

It was a backhanded comment, but it got the men to chuckle, if a little ashamedly for their judgement and their comrade's words. The guy, for his part, just raised his brows. She could see the uncouth thoughts lurking behind his dark eyes and headed it off before they could get much farther.

"Now, now. A lady never tells. Who should I write this to now, sir?"

"Isaac, sweet cheeks." Edith took it in stride, hating that endearment.

It was like a brand, searing at the skin of her hips, where hands used to rest.

"Don't be rude to this woman just because you haven't gotten—"

Edith signed the comic with a fake name (Eleanor, her usual) with a flourish and she stood, brushing down her skirts.

"You fellas stay outta trouble, ya hear? And, boys, remember how important you are to all of us. How brave you are."

She looked down at them, just some shattered guys from the States in a soggin' wet hell. Edith desperately wanted to smoke something, just to have something else to focus on for a while.

"Thank you, soldiers." One of the men, the one that reminded her of Andy, smiled up at her and saluted while the other two stepped away with nods toward where Caroline was standing.

"Miss…I—Could I…speak with you?"

Turning back around, she found that soldier boy- the one with the crutches- had not moved. His bright eyes were skittering toward the crowd every so often, looking wholly nervous and uncertain.

"Wait there." Edith decided to risk it, whatever it was, carefully picking her way down the rickety stage left stairs to come around to where he stood. Her fancy, glittering shoes were marred by the mud, but at that moment, she couldn't quite care. The mud was cold, freezing. Something about it woke her up a bit more.

"Yes, Mister…?"

"Danny. Danny McAllister." He hurriedly pulled the newsboy-like cap from his head and held it in his hand, self-consciously repositioning the crutch. "May I know your name, ma'am? I…know it's probably rude of me. Just…All the guys got a dame in the USO girls that they—or they got a dame back home and I—"

Edith knew all about that by now. With the posters that went out and the performances, it seemed that most crowds picked a favorite among the girls. With the crowd around Caroline, with her buxom figure and her blonde hair, she was often a crowd favorite. Caroline from Cali. Her name was easy to remember as well.

Edith or Eleanor or whatever-her-name-is from Harrisonburg was sure not one of the headliners. There was no poster with her likeness centered. She kept to the back, filled in the chorus. So Edith just smiled and crossed her arms. She appreciated the way Danny kept his eyes on hers, never once looking down to her chest or legs.

"Gotta tell ya, Danny. Not many gents out there know my name. My real name at least."

Now that she was closer, she could see that he wasn't a boy at all. Perhaps her age or only slightly younger. Not very well fed and thin with sickness and overwork and stress. The thought was not a comforting one.

"Figured you didn't give Isaac you're real name." He preened. "Nice woman like you knows better."

"The name's Edith." He repeated the name to himself as if trying to memorize it. She thought it was an interesting quirk. "Whereabouts are you from, Danny?"

"Chicago. Ever been?"

"Can't say that I have."

"It's—"

"Oh, Danny Boy! C'mon! Stop flirtin' and get over here!"

The man—Danny—rolled his eyes and, after a moment of thought, seemed to make a decision. His brows pulled together and he threw out his left hand, holding it out to her like some kind of lifeline. Edith looked to his pale, pale, white splayed fingers to his gaunt face and the glint of dim sunlight off his reddish hair.

"C'mon, Corporeal!" His group was hootin' and wolf-whistling.

"Nice to meet you, Edith." He smiled and held out his free hand. "Ain't gonna call you some angel on the battlefield or whatever stupid stuff you've probably heard too much. Just nice to meet you. Hope you make it back safe and all."

Edith felt her stomach turn, reaching forward to take his hand. He shook it, smile never leaving his face. Even his fingers seemed warm, like the rest of his personality. His survival out here…Edith never knew the name of a solider, outside of the girls' husbands.

"Nice—Nice to meet you, too, Daniel McAllister." Acting on instinct alone, her body pressed forward and she gave him a questioning glance—he grinned like a loon—before settling a small, chaste kiss to his cheek. He laughed, something like a giggle. "Get well soon, soldier. You stay safe, you hear me?"

"Thank you, Miss Edith." He maneuvered around her, heading toward where his men were waiting. A few steps away, he turned back. "If you ever get over Chicago way, and you wanna go for a slice, let a guy know." His buddies clapped him on the back and they disappeared down the way, into camp. Edith stood there, with her shoes caked in mud and waited for the rain to start falling again.

"Nice thing you did for that kid."

Startled, Edith turned and felt the slosh of mud up the side of her left foot as she did. Grumbling under her breath, she glanced down to see that the shoes were likely not salvageable, and if they were it would take a few hours to fix them.

Raising her eyes from the mess, she saw a gentleman standing a few feet away with a smirk on his face. She'd seen plenty of those smirks, in dance halls around the country. She noticed, too, the way his eyes tracked from her mud-covered feet to her hips, stomach, to her chest before finally meeting her eyes.

"Like what you see then?"

It was easy to fall back into that distant tone.

Too easy.

But there was a reprimand there too, if he was smart enough to see it.

"Not my style, dolly, but I appreciate the offer."

He started forward, waving his hand as if batting away something in the damp air. Edith recognized him, somewhere in her mind. She couldn't quite tell how or where she'd seen him before, but she did know this: his swagger was irritating. The kind of swagger that men thought was some kind of siren's call to women.

It wasn't.

"Now, when it comes to blondes, I'm interested."

"Blondes, huh?" He nodded, smiling like a canary-chasing cat. "Let me guess, you keep a picture of Caroline over there tucked under your pillow."

He laughed, shaking his head. "How crude of a man do you think I am? And so quick too! I keep it in a drawer."

Edith didn't respond, reigning in a snort before he could hear it and gain satisfaction from it.

"Saw Betsy nearly take a tumble. Saw you kiss that soldier. Were ya havin' a good time up there, doll face?"

Just who in the world was this man? His tone was borderline patronizing, but she just couldn't place—

"Forgot to introduce myself. I'm Howard Stark. The Howard Stark." Edith raised a brow, fully aware that her makeup was now ruined by the light mist. "The Howard Stark?" He was trying again. Feet in mud and makeup ruined, really Edith was just waiting for Castlefeld to round the corner. He said his name was Howard Stark, but Edith couldn't quite bring herself to care at the moment. "Eh, you don't recognize me, do you?"

"Should I?"

"Genius? Entrepreneur? National icon? Science?"

Edith's fingers itched at the temptation to seek out a cigarette. "Never had much time for science."

His mouth opened and then snapped shut again before he grinned at his shined shoes. He shrugged his shoulders as if he were getting more comfortable in his jacket.

"Okay, doll, try this on for size: five years ago, 1939, Harrisonburg, Virginia. Little place called Old West's, under the water tower." Edith's jaw dropped, heart stuttering a bit in her chest. Now he had her attention. "You were wearing a very fetching blue number three sizes too large, got an incredibly large tip that night after one dance. It paid for that coat you needed because it was damn cold outside."

He was looking at the camp, at the stage, at his feet, anywhere but her, and Edith felt all the air leave her lungs.

"You—"

"Well, sweetheart, I thought I was more memorable than that. You sure know how to humble a fella." He grinned, winking at her as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Wasn't sure it was you 'til I got a closer look. Sure looked like you though. Still got the scars on my feet from our swing about the dancefloor."

She could remember him now.

One of her first customers at Old West. She'd still been a new girl on the roster, only sixteen (too young, way too young), wearing hand-me-down dresses from older girls and shoes three sizes too small.

This man—Howard Stark—he'd only been in once, only danced with her once, but his tip had paid for the coat she had folded up backstage. And it paid for a couple meals to boot. How could she forget that?

"Seems you remember me now."

"You didn't have a mustache then," was all Edith could think to say.

"No, I didn't." He grinned, a wild light in his eyes and he gestured from her head down to her mud-covered toes. "Never really been one for remembering dames." 'Cuz I've been with so many hung unsaid. Edith wasn't an idiot. She knew what it meant. "I remembered you."

"Not sure why you remember," she responded with a shrug that earned her a considering look. Like he was appraising her. She waved a hand, much as he did before. "Most I remember about that night was one dance and then finding a solid twenty in my shoe. I still don't know how you managed that. You stumbled out of there." Stark just smiled, obviously keen to keep his secrets. Nevertheless, and setting aside his slightly irritating cocksure persona (which she just couldn't seem to remember from years ago), Edith gave him a small grateful grin. "Thank you for that tip though. You're right. It bought me a coat…and kept me fed for a few days."

"Well, you're welcome, sweetness. You might've nearly stomped my foot off, but you had the best rhythm of anyone I've seen."

He nodded before seeming to decide that he had accomplished what he'd come to accomplish, stepping around her to start walking away. Edith felt a little off-balance, turning to watch him get a few feet away before stopping, hands shoved deep into his coat pockets.

Was that all? He just wanted to tell her it was him who left that tip, a basic and casual 'hey,' and then leave again like smoke in mist? Edith tried to shrug away the instinct to chase after him.

He turned, expression more serious and thoughtful than she'd been expecting. "My butler, Jarvis, placed the twenty in your heel."

He made it a few more steps before he stopped again, head dropping forward. Edith waited, trying not to shiver as the rain soaked her hair and made its way through the costume. She was in for an earful later, she knew. It was well enough though. The more she thought about it, the more stunned she was. Her eyes left him and tracked down to her feet again, still mud-caked.

"Edith?"

She jerked her head up again. There was something searching there, like he was dying to ask something or to say something, but his eyes darted around and he seemed to think better of whatever it was.

"When they came to Richmond, and they took on a Taxi girl, did you think it was strange?"

Edith's mouth opened, but he was already walking away. He disappeared into a tent across the camp and when he did, she began to move. Shaking off her muddied feet, she charged into the backstage area and started pulling the bobby pins from her hair. There were only two or three girls and one of the stagehands back there. Most everyone else had likely gone on to lunch or to their barracks. Something, blood, was rushing her ears. She couldn't even hear when California questioned her. It was only when some thin, pale fingers rested on her forearm that she became conscious again.

"You alright, hun?"

Her hands stilled as they worked to clean off her feet and she sat upright. "Had they hired a single Taxi girl before Richmond?"

"What?"

Caroline had been with the show since the beginning. She would know. "Before Richmond, the show in Richmond, did they hire former Taxi girls? Did they recruit them?" It'd never occurred to her before to even ask. She knew there were former factory girls, former dancers and actresses, former Taxi girls in the bunch, but—

"No, they only recruited in New York and LA—"

Edith huffed something close to a laugh. Close to it, but not quite mirthful. It was a heavy sort of caustic sound. Jumping up, she pulled on her trousers underneath the skirt and hauled the jacket onto her arms, hurriedly stuffing her bare feet into the boots. "Cover for me with Castlefeld." She held Caroline's gaze for a long moment before the woman nodded. Edith shifted her stare to Betsy, who looked a little doubtful.

"Bets, I have covered for you more times than I can count. Just this once, return the favor."

The blonde started to respond, but instead nodded her agreement. She probably looked like a drowned and desperate rat, but Edith really just couldn't care.

She sped from the tent like the Devil himself was on her heels, darting across the camp with quick purposeful strides. She probably looked a mess with her hair unpinned and her makeup faded, with factory pants underneath her USO costume. When she strode into the tent she'd seen Howard Stark disappear into, she heard an amused chuckle and her hackles rose.

"Welp, darlin'. Looks like you figured it out."

"You had them recruit me. Why?"

His jacket was gone and he was perched on a desk, leaning against it with his arms crossed. He'd been waiting for her. After a moment, he shrugged.

"Felt like it."

"Not a good enough reason."

Howard pursed his lips, wagging a finger. "Seemed like a pretty good reason to me. I knew a dancer that needed work. They needed dancers that needed work. Win-win. Not to mention, they'll do anything to keep me happy—even recruit a girl from nowhere."

Shrugging, he pushed off the desk and maneuvered around it. His fingers ran over papers that looked like they held maps, plans, and schematics. Edith took a step forward, eyes narrowing on all the equipment and materials that lie about the tent.

"Most of the American public'd probably think I've ate your apple pie, so to speak. Just doing a good thing for the sake of doing a good thing."

Not buy it in the slightest, and not even batting an eye to his euphemism, Edith made her way over to his desk as he flopped down in the chair.

"C'mon, sweetness. I did it out of the goodness of my heart."

Nobody did anything out of the kindness of their hearts.

"Why?"

He snorted, leaning back to fold his arms behind his head. "Are you always so suspicious?"

Edith reaffirmed her stance in front him, resting both hands on her hips. "It was one dance, one night in the middle of nowhere, like you said. Why in the world would you bother? It's been six years since then. I was just a sweaty dancer, so wh—"

"When I landed in Harrisonburg, it was during a cross-country binge of booze and broads. Now, normally, that would've been all well and good, but this was just after my pops died and I was a kid. Jarvis tracked me there and found me in that dance hall. I'd been four sheets to the wind for weeks. I'd dried out. Looked up and there's this girl. She looks young—too young to be there with all those lousy slouches, younger than me. Her dress doesn't fit 'cause she's too skinny. Probably hasn't eaten good in a few days and I figure—_Go get 'er, Howard. You got one up on these jerks 'cause you're a catch. One last broad to top off a great week. C'mon, Howard._ You didn't know who I was. Just let me hold you, for ten cents. I figured I was worth that. You didn't say a damn thing about it. Didn't complain that some sweaty slouch was hanging all over you, stepping on your toes."

Crying, too, if she remembered it right.

But he didn't say it and she wouldn't either.

"No, doll, you know what you did?"

Yeah, she remembered.

"I carried you."

And she did.

She could remember it. He'd paid the ten cents for a ticket, took her for a spin about the floor— a sloppy, sticky turn around the floor. His feet got caught up underneath him. Maybe the short feeling of weightlessness that came with falling was too much. Edith remembered him burying his face into her shoulder as he bawled. She didn't have heart to turn him out or throw him off the floor.

Back then, she really didn't even have the strength to. She'd been so young, all gangly arms and legs.

So she just braced her arms around his back and held him up, making the casual effort to sway every now and again until he got ahold of himself.

He'd been crying for his father, she figured now.

It was the only time a Mickey had cried on her shoulder.

Hard to forget.

"You carried me," he agreed. "You wanna know why I left that tip? Why I made them take a smooth-talkin' Taxi girl from Richmond, break their own rules?" Edith stayed quiet, watching as his hands lowered from behind his head and he leaned onto his desk. "Because I don't like owing favors."

"You didn't owe me anything, Mister Stark."

"Howard. Call me Howard." He corrected with a droll roll of his dark eyes. "Alright, sweetheart. The debt's been repaid otherwise and before you think it, you didn't get in with the USO because of me. You got the audition. That's it." Seeming to get tired of the topic, he looked down at his papers and stood. "You know a thing about mechanical engineering?" Edith didn't respond as he gathered some schematics. "How far'd you get in school?"

"Eighth grade," Edith answered.

The abruptness of the way he spoke was interesting, a lot more interesting than Edith really even cared to admit.

And after a year or so of being with the girls and the high kicks of the chorus, something about the way he spoke just seemed more engaging.

"I don't know anything about mechanical anything." She stepped forward as he moved around the desk, headed for a blackboard that was against the back wall of the tent. She fingered at a couple images, drawings that measured out lengths and widths, and some sort of turbine propeller. "This go in water?"

"It's a Nazi Science Division-HYDRA-submarine." Edith glanced his way to see him scrawling something illegible in chalk. "Yes, it goes in water."

He seemed to block out her presence, but never explicit asked that she leave, and her attention was still captured by the schematics. If it was some kind of submarine, wasn't there pressure that it had to deal with? How did something like this keep from being collapsed like a tin can? Her knowledge of that kind of stuff was thin, and Edith was the first one to say that her knowledge of anything involving the ocean and machinery was definitely not in her wheelhouse.

"That thing's top secret and it's more advanced than anything I've ever done."

Engineer? Stark? Edith could see the front page of the Virginia Chronicle.

**_Stark Industries Does It Again!_**

The idea of the Nazis having anything that outdid the Allies pissed Edith off. It overshadowed her surprise at the realization that perhaps Stark was more than she thought. She took it in stride.

"So you're gonna build it better?"

He snorted at her words, and Edith turned to see him grinning.

"That's the idea, doll."

"Something like this—for one person—couldn't make it across the Atlantic, could it?"

"That one was found outside of Brooklyn."

Edith breath caught as she turned back around to where he was continuing to write equations on the board. She'd never really considered education as worth anything much. For her, and for many others, it didn't pay the bills or keep her fed.

Street smarts did that.

"It's short distance though, isn't it?" She walked forward, coming to stand at this man's-Howard Stark's- side as he stepped away from the blackboard with chalk coating his hands. He turned to look at her, eyebrows raised in question. "So, what? Did they put in in Jersey?"

"Probably," he conceded. She could see that he knew the implications of his words.

It wasn't some earth-shattering realization. By all rights, she probably should have been more surprised than she was. But wars weren't just waged on the battlefields and there was no way America was going to get off scott-free.

"They're in America." He stayed silent, a frown pulling at his lips. It was all the answer Edith needed. "Those bastards are in—"

"They're _everywhere_," he said. "Everywhere you look. Hell, one of the girls kickin' up their heels could be HYDRA. They've got people running covert ops all over the damn place, and we're supposed to fight it when they got better tech than we do."

She could hear the frustration as he took a step back to stare at the blackboard.

Edith looked at it too, matching his hands-on-hips stance.

"You don't have the education for it, but if you look at this, what do you see?" Her mouth opened and he quickly shook his head. "Don't think about all the ways you're not qualified— because you're really not— just answer the question."

The drawing was complex, a jumbled mess of lines and numbers. Her eyes traveled from the equal signs to the shapes, trying to fit them together in her mind—the same way she once had to do at the factory. Edith could almost imagine the smell of stale blood, a sickening coppery scent that made her stomach turn as she focused on the most confusing part of the picture.

If it was as big as she figured it was, then how could it move?

"No idea?"

"It's a…tank."

Edith didn't turn to him, eyes narrowing on the part she figured was talking about fuel or something. Getting frustrated, she pushed the hair from her face and looked to him.

"How does it move? This thing's as big as a building, right?" His mouth opened, but Edith had already refocused on the weight. It was the same sort of breakdown that the factory used for butchered meat. "It takes how much oil and gasoline to move a truck? A tank like this...This thing can't— It doesn't make sense is what I'm sayin'. Something like this doesn't make physical…sense."

When she looked back to Howard again, she saw a pleased smile on his face, like he'd just won a hand at poker, but didn't feel like telling anyone yet.

"Ya know, doll, I'm gonna be real impressed if you can tell me what that part is."

He slapped his hand to the board, just above a set of numbers and a few curved lines. Equations. He stood back again, crossing his arms, looking as if he was waiting to be impressed.

She wondered vaguely what Mrs. Castlefeld would say.

Alone with a man!

Alone with a man when the sun's setting?

How could anyone be so uncouth?

Edith stepped forward, unable to help her own fascination.

"It's a cannon."

She heard a clap and he had disappeared from behind her, striding over to the opposite side of the tent with a bright smile on his face, eyebrows furrowed in thought. "Exactly! Exactly! It's as big as a building." He was moving around, almost frantically, before passing her something as he strode by again. She held the metal sheet in her hands, looking down at the cornered metal. It was heavy. She couldn't imagine a bullet getting through it. "Whole thing's made out of that. Think of something twenty feet high and thirty feet long with that as its shell with ammo and traction to boot. That slab over there is part of the back end."

"So, it's heavy."

"It's heavy."

"But no gas?"

"No gas." He threw up both hands and shrugged his shoulders, looking around at the mess of parts. It was clear he was frustrated and "Two hundred men died to get me this information. To get me that," he gestured at what she was holding. "It shouldn't move like it does, cover the ground it covers. It shouldn't physically be able to do what it does. It's damn frustrating."

Edith looked down at the metal again, thin fingers gripping the edges as it felt heavier in her hands. Two hundred men. The weight of it seemed to sink into her stomach as she braced it there, lifting her eyes again to where Stark stood.

"Why're you telling me all this? Asking me? I'm just a dancer. I don't know nothing outside of basic arithmetic."

"Outside perspective." He waved her off. "Sometimes, you need new blood. I like to use blood that I trust."

She leveled him a dull look. Trust was an overrated emotion, a false reassurance. There were only so many people that Edith trusted—and they had earned it. She'd done nothing to earn Howard Stark's trust, but he seemed so keen to give it away.

"You don't trust me, Mister Stark—"

"Howard," he corrected again as he examined something.

"I'm a brick."

Stark stopped and raised his brows, looking over to her.

"I'm a brick. My cousin, Vera, she was more intelligent than anyone I ever saw. So… smart she couldn't talk to anybody out on the farm, so she talked to a brick. She said the brick helped her think. Said that the brick didn't slow her down with stupid questions."

Edith sat the metal plating on a nearby table and moved to a chair that sat by the doorway, nervously running her hand along the back before sitting down, folding the coat around herself more tightly as she crossed on leg over the other. When she looked up again, it was to a stunned Stark.

"Look, past aside. Everything aside, I'm a brick here. I don't know why you need one, but there's no way I'm gonna head back to our barracks until the next show. So, talk away." Her arms crossed and she leaned back, waiting.

If she went to the barracks now, Castlefeld would have noticed her absence. And there'd be another encounter, one that Edith simply didn't want to have.

"All of this is top secret," he said after a moment. "As in, the government will probably slap my wrist."

"A wrist slap? They won't kill me for it, will they?" He shrugged. Edith probably should have felt more bothered, but she just couldn't bring herself to react. Maybe it was the wet weather that hampered her good senses. "I bet I can't light up in here?"

There was a chuckle before he flew into some explanation or another. Edith didn't quite listen, eyes and attention returning to the chart he had drawn on the blackboard.

Something that big…and the damn Nazi's had it.

She'd never been one for anger, but what she was feeling at the moment was much closer to rage.

She'd be out on that stage kicking up her heels and the boys were facing that monstrosity.

The big gun—the cannon—sat low.

Her Pa had always taught her that you had to hold a shotgun a certain way, so she wouldn't be flung back like a ragdoll. First time she'd fired, she'd been thrown to the ground. She'd been a slip of paper back then.

_'Don't fall over, baby girl. Plant your feet next time.'_

The kickback on that thing had to be rough.

Three tacks. Did they all move independent? No, it didn't look like they did. Not from what Stark had drawn. Three tracks but all on the same wheels? How did that make sense? Why do something like that when—

Stark was still talking somewhere, but she wasn't paying a bit of attention.

Edith slowly pulled one leg from over the other, leaning forward to continue staring at the blackboard. Kickback and traction and energy. No gas. She'd guess no coal either. No idea of the energy it took to power something so stupidly gigantic, so…

She rose to her feet, brows pulling together in concentration.

If the kickback wasn't enough to flip it over, that meant…

She was in front of the blackboard now, arms crossed over her chest. "No." What were the chances of someone getting behind it? Her head shook and she looked a little closer. No chance and the counterweight needed to balance the gun made the back just as solid as the front. Perfect counterbalances.

"From the inside."

She glanced over to where Stark was watching, his expression not quite readable. Despite herself, knowing that this was probably nothing new to him, Edith gestured toward the tank.

"This."

Howard sat down the armor he held in his hands, striding over to look between the image and the dancer. "What do you figure, dolly?"

A little stunned at his seemingly genuine interest (and a little chagrined at the pet name), Edith nodded toward the tank again.

"It fires huge rounds right, like a shotgun, right? That means it carries its weight forward to balance the kickback or...There has to be a counterweight. That's all I—" He gestured for her to continue, 'by all means.' "That armor over there you said was from the back end, right? Nothing we got can break through that, right? They're using it to counterbalance as well. The weight of the cannon itself. And the front end balances the kickback. It's like—It's like what you see in the mines. It's gotta blow from the inside."

"Alright, doll, you aren't holding out on me are you?"

"Holding out what?"

"A degree in engineering."

He seemed to think for a moment, as if calculating options and equations and all sorts of things Edith was sure she couldn't understand. She looked back at the blackboard, narrowing her eyes at the schematics. Then, a hand grabbed her wrist and she was dragged from the tent.


	4. Chapter 4

**2015**

"Gotta admit: I never wanted to see this place again." Edith tried not to cringe as she stepped into the house, biting her lip as she crossed the threshold. That house held far too many memories, too many man-I-wish-I-could-go-backs. Really, she should've known that Peggy would make it into a safe house. Peggy was sentimental, which only made the Alzheimer's more of a blow. Edith reached up to rest a hand on the old fireplace in the front hall, feeling the cool wood under her fingers. Her old keys had left a scar on the wood under her hand. "This is a terrible idea, Nick."

"Get over it." He reached up and pulled the gray beanie from his head. A redhead rounded the corner, eyes trailing over Fury until she seemed satisfied that he was well and upright. Then, her eyes tracked over to Edith. The woman's back stiffened and her lip curled. Edith could see it coming a mile away. "Romanoff, you remember—"

"You're a bitch."

Edith gave half-hearted, close-lipped smile. That low matter-of-fact tone was as amusing as it was cutting. "'Hi' to you too, Natasha. A bit too on-the-nose for a 'long time, no see.'"

"Where've you been?"

Sighing, Edith deflated. Her body felt older than it had in a while, an ache settling midway between the shoulder blades. Natasha was angry. And when that girl was angry, there was no hearing the end of it. She held grudges. She stuck to those grudges like the red that clung to her ledger. The anger was absolutely justified, so Edith knew she'd just have to ride it out.

"Here and there. Mostly, Harrisonburg. Took a long turn about Red River." Whatever flickered in Natasha's eyes was distinctly unforgiving. "Nick just pulled me out of retirement."

"Retirement? We thought you were dead."

"I was…for a time. Edith Sawyer needed to die so I could live." Natasha raised an eyebrow, turning her back to them to pad into the kitchen. Nick shot a look over his shoulder as he followed, gesturing impatiently for Edith to fall in line. And while she may've considered jumping out of the car on the ride from Virginia, it was too late now to give up the Ghost. No, as she trudged toward the kitchen, Edith was resigned to her fate.

"Is the— Yep, there it is." The antique dining table was right where she'd left it, tobacco twist legs spindly and sturdy. Her father carved it himself, a table for her to seat her family at after she got married. Edith cringed as she drug her fingertips across the wood. It never did serve her married life. "Peggy kept it."

"She kept all of your things."

Edith smiled a bit at the circle stains on the wood. A particularly warm summer in 1947—only two years since the war ended. Peg had come to visit, blood still crusting her blouse, her right eye bruised. Edith had stepped aside at the front door, grabbed a slab of meat from the refrigerator, and pulled out the First Aid kit. With that hunk of meat pressed against Peg's eye, they drank glass-bottled Colas, talking through old times and grieving and planning for the future. They talked about how they couldn't twiddle their thumbs while the men fought. How Russia was posturing. How Edwin Jarvis had the patience of a saint.

There was something about places like that. Edith could still hear the laughter, the radio, Howard's voice when he'd throw the front door open with some grand new idea, or new stupid idea, or halfway into a bottle of Jack, the— It was the same at Old West's, at The Rambler Stand. She could hear the swing.

"So, you're coming out of retirement. Why?"

"Felt like it."

Nick scoffed, settling into a seat opposite her at the table. He looked to Natasha, who leaned against the wall with her arms crossed.

"You got that intel on Barnes?"

"I gave it to Steve. You know that."

Edith kept her expression neutral. In her mind though, she cursed. Her eyes narrowed at Nick as she yanked out a chair to sit down, in the same place she'd been nearly seventy years prior. Damn if she didn't want to slam that kid's head through the window.

She'd been played.

"You came out of hiding for Barnes?"

"I came out of hiding because I felt like it, Natasha."

That wasn't necessarily true. Nick Fury was a man who got what he wanted. And she hadn't missed the casual threat to her restaurant if she didn't fall in line. "It'd be a real inconvenience if that hole-in-the-wall was targeted by HYDRA because you own it." It put the ownership on HYDRA, but Edith knew better. She knew the game. And she knew that, as soon as Nick Fury had arrived on her half-finished porch, that life wouldn't go back to "normal." So she called her people and had Obie take over for the foreseeable future.

'Family stuff to handle' and all that.

Family stuff was a bit too literal.

"You gave the intel to Steve."

Natasha's calculating gaze— unsettling as it was— turned to Edith. "He's trying to find him. I'm trying to support a friend."

"It's just gonna give him one more thing to obsess about. Steve's got a one track mind."

Natasha grimaced, her narrowed eyes turning to Fury with an unreadable message. Edith knew, God did she know!, that Natasha had better control than that. Either she was manipulating the situation, or she was shocked Fury hadn't disclosed something. Edith felt suspicion creep at the edges of her awareness.

"Nick…"

"That HYDRA hitman you were talking about? The one bent on your inevitable death?"

Edith felt a chill creep down her spine as her mind leapt to a warm spring night in 1991. Flames and twisted metal. Steering column through the gut. Pinned.

She'd broken a capsule as he'd walked to the car, ripping the door off its hinges.

In the molar capsule was a poison meant to mimic death, suited specifically to Edith's biochemical make-up.

Janet created it before—

"— Bucky Barnes."

Her head snapped around to stare at Nick Fury, brows pulling together in question. "What?"

"I said: Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier."

James Buchanan Barnes is the Winter Soldier.

Her heart felt as if it had both stopped and caught on fire. Because Bucky Barnes was alive. She'd known that. Since the files had been dumped. She'd known for months. She shivered. Because Bucky Barnes, as the Russian assassin, had tried to kill her, twice. Because Bucky Barnes killed Howard and Maria. And so many others. Because— Because he didn't do any of those things. But he did. He did. For some reason, her next deep breath smelled like formaldehyde and blood. It burned her throat like the threat of tears.

"I knew that."

"You knew that?"

"Data dump." Her shrug felt heavy, like it took effort to draw up her shoulders and let them fall. "Does Steve know?"

If she choked a bit on Steve's name, neither spy batted an eye.

"Does Steve—" Natasha jerked her head around to Fury. "Didn't you tell her anything?"

Fury shrugged, looking distinctly innocent as he pulled out his phone like some disinterested teenager. "I've had a few things going on, Romanoff. Getting this old woman out of her hidey-hole was Step One in however many steps it takes to keep her meerkat ass out of her den." He didn't acknowledge the very rude gesture Edith sent him. "So, tell her, Romanoff, if you think she needs to know."

Natasha looked distinctly pissed off. Her neatly sculpted eyebrows pinched together until she finally seemed to decide something. "Steve fought the Soldier on the Helicarrier. Barnes dragged him from the water. Barnes was seen visiting the Smithsonian's Captain America exhibit before he disappeared. Since then, he's been in the wind." Sharp green eyes glanced down to Edith's wringing hands. "So, yeah. Steve knows."

"You wanna know why I dragged you out of hiding, Sawyer?"

"Because you're a vindictive little shit?"

Nick hummed, placing his elbows on the table and setting the phone away.

"Because your husband is on the run from HYDRA. Figured you'd want to help find him before they do."

Edith didn't flinch. She didn't withdraw. She didn't move. Her eyes took on a steely hardness. The same way they always did when she felt threatened. Hands gripping them hem of her jeans, she settled for a nonchalant chuckle.

"I've been living my life alone longer than I knew Bucky Barnes." She may have been away from the game for three decades, but she could sense Natasha bristling. The girl had always been something of a romantic. Edith had long-since been freed from that notion. "And I've been married more than once, too."

Nick stared back.

"And I know you're not sayin' Bob is somehow bein' chased by the kraken."

"How about this: because Steve Rogers— your friend?— needs help getting his buddy back."

Sighing, Edith pushed herself up out of the tobacco twist chair. She moved toward the back door, where a small plot of land made way for a small back garden. So many decades ago, they'd barbecued on the Fourth of July, to honor Steve's memory and birthday. It'd ended with Howard in a drunk stupor and Peggy staring wistfully at the flag tacked to the fence. Dum-Dum drove Peggy home and Edwin took Howard back to his penthouse, where he spent the remainder of the weekend in an alcohol-induced stupor.

"You could've just left me alone, Nick. Steve can get along just fine without me."

"You're Edith Sawyer. If I could find you, they would've found you sooner or later. S.H.I.E.L.D. needs you. Steve Rogers needs you. The whole damn world needs you. And you ain't gonna have it easy. Rogers, Stark…They're gonna call you on your shit. And they should. But if there's any way we can find Sergeant Barnes and bring him safely home before shit hits the fan- and it is gonna hit the fan, because it always hits the fan-, it's you."

It was moving speech.

Not quite as moving as the kid's "one man" schpil.

Edith turned, looking at the living room where she'd spent ten years of her life.

Ten years of mourning, looking back, healing. There was an old re-plastered section of wall near the fireplace. The paint there didn't quite match. She'd punched through it in anger. Anger for all of the hurt. Anger that Edith didn't know how many tears had hit the herringbone wood. Anger that she'd gained so much and lost so much. And life had never been fair.

But that was years ago.

"So, d'ya want me to pop out of a cake or what?"

"Actually, Sawyer, I had something else in mind."

* * *

"You look better than the last time I saw you. I don't know—you have a glow."

"Well, you know, I've been eating healthier. More calisthenics. Keeping limber."

Edith shifted, eyeing him up and down as she adjusted the bag on her shoulder. Her attention flickered to the rest of the ragtag team assembled behind him, complete with two adorable-looking youngins and Melinda May, who looked none-too-pleased with her lips pinched tightly together. Her arms were crossed. This woman was a far cry from the agent she remembered at Academy graduation. But that was to be expected, considering what she'd endured.

Phil's tie was loosened, eyes level and calm.

Not good. Most definitely not good.

It'd been years since she'd seen him face-to-face—since early 1991, in fact—but she recognized that look. The careful placidness that he'd perfected in his early years of service. Edith tried to work past the shock and the other assortment of emotions that flooded her heart and stomach. Because… his empty casket was buried next to hers.

"You look pretty spry for a dead guy, Phillip." She could tell that he was trying not to react to that. The slightest tick at the corner of his mouth was a giveaway. "Last I heard, you were six feet under…You look good. I like that suit."

"It's new and thanks." Agent, no, Director Coulson responded with a smile. There was that familiar light in his eyes, the light he tried to hide sometimes. A light that marked him as distinctly human. He looked up from under his lashes, a grin pulling at his lips. Trouble. That was trouble right there. It always had been. Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Phil Coulson. "Sorry I couldn't make it to your funeral. I had a mission in Canada."

"Sounds like a yarn, but alright." Edith took a deep breath and took a step forward, raising her brows for permission. He nodded and she felt her heart ache a bit. He nodded the same way he did when he was a kid, holding a plastic shield in front of his chest. She could smell cookies, his mother's recipe, as her arms wound around his shoulders. "I'm glad you're okay."

"We've got a lot to talk about. Starting with: I thought you were dead."

"Back at you, kid."

"Uh, so…You're Agent Sawyer?"

Edith released Phil and stepped back, surveying the group. The Director gestured to the youngins.

"These are Agents Skye and Antoine Triplett. You know the situation then?"

"Some four-eyed jackass apparently refuses to die? Yeah, I was apprised. What do we know?"

"Hold up. Sorry if I'm being rude, but…" The girl with the long hair stepped forward, gesturing with her arms. Her eyes narrowed critically as she peered at Edith. It was a standard threat assessment and Edith held both hands out with a smug smile and an amused glance in Phil's direction. He had that same patient smile. "Who are you exactly?"

The black man behind her had furrowed brows, like the answer was just at the tip of his tongue. He'd figure it out faster than any of them, given the chance to really think about it. Besides, Edith decided, it was about time she met Gabe's grandbaby. They'd moved back to Macon before their daughter was born.

"Edith Sawyer. I—"

"Wait! Wait! Wait! E-Edith Sawyer? The Edith Sawyer? That Edith Sawyer?" Sure enough, Gabe's grandbaby had already figured it out and was extending his hand with an excited smile. Edith knew she didn't do anything to earn the respect on his eyes. But those were the same expressive eyes as Gabe, and her hand reached out on instinct. "My grandpa used to tell me all kinds of stories. I— It's great to meet you, Agent Sawyer. Grandpa really respected you. You're a legend in our household."

"Your grandpa was a good man, Antoine. One of the finest I ever met. Got me out of more than a few pickles."

The girl looked at Antoine as if he'd grown another head, attention shifting back to Edith and then to Phil with a kind of lost desperation. She wanted a straight answer. Edith had to respect that. Then, after a split second, the girl's eyes went wide. "Wait! That Edith Sawyer! Shouldn't you be dead?"

Edith's mouth opened to respond before her jaw snapped shut. She just laughed, placing her hands on her hips. "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Waving a hand, she shrugged. "Or something like that?"

After a moment, Melinda seemed to decide she was done with the introductions. She turned on her heel and walked away, toward a set of bulkhead doors.

Phil looked after her and sighed, gesturing for Edith to walk alongside. "It's been…a long few weeks. I know you're not here for long. I'm sure this place brings back some memories." Considering Edith could practically see ghost walking in the hallways, she silently agreed. The Playground was Peggy's first major build project. Edith had been stationed at the facility for nearly two years. "Fury said you've got some intel for us. I'm not above using whatever resources I can. HYDRA's on the move and we need to be prepared."

A few long strides and she wondered what had been made of her old quarters. And Peg's old quarters. And Dum-Dum's, too. She'd watched the concrete be poured and the bricks laid. SSR kept only the most secure items in the vaults below, so many stories down that Edith wondered how much of Earth and not-Earth's history lay down there, buried and forgotten.

Each corner, a new ghost.

Fury's motivation in sending her here first was a message.

You can't escape the past.

"Vault B is a good place to start." Sighing, Edith pawed at her forehead and followed Phil into his office. Behind them, Antoine, the girl, Skye, and Melinda fell in line and positioned themselves in random places throughout the room. Phil closed the door and May secured the space. The bulkhead panels slowly descended over the windows until the space was only lit by a couple lamps and the projected screen. "So, what is Herr Reinhardt calling himself now? 'God'?"

Phil snorted, propping himself up against the desk. Seeing that no one else was going to move in making themselves more comfortable, Edith fell into one of the leather chairs in front of the desk where Phil was leaning. Melinda took up Phil's flank, positioned between him and the door. Melinda's stare was a threat—hurt him and I hurt you. "You're familiar with Werner Reinhardt?"

Scoffing, Edith twisted in the chair to see the man's pinched and weathered face behind a pair of bottlecap glasses. She gritted her teeth and turned her back to the screen, looking up at Phil with as much control as she could muster. "Yeah, kid, I'm familiar."

"So, want to share with the rest of the class?" Melinda's tone earned a reprimanding look from the Director. Edith had to appreciate that kind of bluntness. May had certainly changed, but— at her core— she was the same agent. To-the-point. Sighing, her attention tracked over to the youngins, who were standing nearby, looking toward the screen with a mixture of concern and derision.

"Werner Reinhardt is a sick bastard. I know from experience."

If anyone in that room was surprised, they kept it to themselves.

"In March '45, I was captured by some HYDRA operatives and taken to Austria. Reinhardt was there to make me feel welcome. Like a good host. He did some experiments, played with my insides, played with my blood. I came out of his playroom virtually invulnerable." Edith rolled her shoulders, trying to seem nonchalant when really…the phantom pain of the restraints never quite disappeared. He'd been one sick sonuvabitch. "Peg, Jim, and Dum Dum got me out and, last I heard, good ol' Werner escaped The Rat. I lost track of him in '95. Thank God he doesn't know I'm alive."

Phil nodded, gesturing toward the screen. His expression was carefully blank, but Edith knew better. She could sense it in the way he positioned himself further forward on his seat. Julie, his mother, used to do that, too. When she was pissed. "Werner Reinhardt goes by the name 'Daniel Whitehall' now. He's on the move and your stopover here is limited. I need to know everything you can tell us."

Turning around again to stare at the man's middle-aged face, the same bottlecap glasses and same tilt of the lips, Edith sighed and drew in a deep breath. Back then, she became so familiar with that face. She'd memorized every wrinkle, every mark. It took decades to erase it from waking moments and everyday conversations. But, every so often, he'd emerge again from the recesses, ready to carve and call it 'science.'

"Wait. Are you saying that this guy, Whitehall, made you a mutant?"

Attention lowering from the screen on the wall, Edith glanced toward Skye. Straightforward and inquisitive, apparently. She could respect that. "I'm not a mutant. I'm actually 'Enhanced,' or…Uh, we used to call them 'mutates' back in the day. I had no genetic predisposition. Just a jackass with too many resources and too much imagination."

Way too much imagination.

In many ways, it made him a genius.

In many ways, it made him a monster.

"That's what happened in '45?" The rough swallow that Edith managed was just enough to keep her heart from rattling free of flesh. Phil's voice was level. It seemed, though, that everyone in that office could hear the slightest break. It was a little heartbreaking to see the kid lose a little bit of his innocence, even at his age. "You said Stark gave you your powers."

"Half-truths make better bedtime stories. Yeah, that's what happened in '45, slick. You were definitely too young to know and the files have been sealed in Vault B ever since the prick was captured."

"Too young to— Wait, are you, like, AC's— Uh, Director Coulson's grandma or something?" She looked particularly disturbed at the notion and Edith fought the urge to play into it. Granny Eddie. Grammy Ed. At a look from Melinda, Edith sighed and reigned in the instinct, crossing her arms and leaning back in the chair to stare at Coulson. "What—"

"Philip's my nephew. My second husband's sister was his mom." Phil didn't back down, obviously determined to get an actual answer. "By all rights, I didn't lie. Howard stabilized whatever Reinhardt did to me. If he hadn't, well, you'd be short a lot of Captain America memorabilia."

"But—"

"Vault B?" Melinda interceded, hands on her hips. "You sure?"

"It was Vault B in my time. I doubt much has changed. You'll find most of Reinhardt's research down there. Along with a lot of stuff you probably don't want to see the light of day." Taking deep breath, Edith centered and pushed herself up, brushing invisible lint from her black jeans as she stepped around the chair to draw closer to the screen bearing a bespectacled monster's likeness. "Reinhardt, Whitehall. Whatever he's done to himself…Take him out. He isn't the kind you 'take in.' He's the kind you shoot twice just to make sure he's dead."

A while later, after the youngins had left to make preparations and Melinda had gone in search of Vault B's buried treasure, Edith sank into the same leather chair again as Phil poured out a glass of whiskey. He was suspiciously quiet. When he was a boy, that kind of quiet meant trouble. Meant he was thinking to hard. And usually, that led to some sort of shenanigan or adventure. One time, it led to the police being called on a very small Captain America in what became dubbed 'The Great Cat Rescue of 1969.' He was quiet because he'd been up the oak in the front lawn.

"Fury's trying to rip off the band aid."

Edith took the glass of brown liquid, downing it for the burn but not the buzz.

She never could feel a thing from alcohol after Herr Poindexter's experiments.

"Nick's a jerk. A well-meaning jerk, but a jerk nonetheless."

Phil shrugged. "It's good to see you, Aunt Eddie. Even if I am kinda surprised to see you alive. But I guess…both of our empty caskets are next to each other, huh?"

"If your Uncle Bob shows up…" Edith sighed. "He'll make sure both caskets are used properly." She wondered how much Phil hated her for what she'd done. Running. Hiding. After a moment, she bit the bullet. "I'm—"

"No, you're not. Neither am I."

"Don't interrupt your elders, kid. It's rude."

"Technically…I think I'm younger— " The kid grinned and then quickly sobered. "Fury said the information he sent me was his way of getting you to come here."

Reaching back to an old radio— the same kind that once sat in her apartment, the one that Peggy'd preserved— Phil twisted the dial three times before a latch opened and a USB drive appeared.

"I'm not one for keeping blackmail on my family. And we appreciate your help with Whitehall, but I think we've got it in hand. You've got bigger problems. When I get the chance, I'll shoot him." He held the drive out. "I get why you never told me. I got…stuff…I don't want others knowing either."

Phil waved the stick and grinned.

It was a humorous cover for the fear and darkness in his eyes.

But Phil was no stranger to secrets.

There was once a time when she wished he'd never see how messed up the world was, when he'd never have secrets, when he wouldn't have that kind of fear in his eyes.

Back then, he could keep fighting imaginary villains in the backyard.

"Nick's not gonna let you hear the end of it." Edith took the proffered thumb drive and slipped it into the inside pocket of her worn brown leather jacket. "The guy holds grudges. I think he wanted me to work for it. Some sort of payback."

Phil shrugged. "I'm Director now. It's gotta have some perks. I got a reserved parking space."

"Movin' on up." Edith patted the pocket. "What exactly is on this thing anyway?"

"Data." At his aunt's deadpan stare, Phil Coulson relented and held up both hands. "Okay, okay. Barnes was in Savannah three days ago. Cap's on his trail. Fury said there's some other stuff on there. Stuff you don't know yet. Stuff you need, no matter how connected you think you are. His words, not mine." Phil's sheepish grin told her that he'd definitely tried to figure out what that other stuff was. Hand caught in the cookie jar. "Cap and…everyone…They don't know—" At the look Edith leveled him, he snapped his mouth shut and smiled. "Right. We're both back from the dead. If you don't ruin my surprise, I won't ruin yours."

Snorting, Edith just shook her head. "We're a messed up pair, kid."

"Yeah… I was brought back using blue alien blood. It's got me sleepwalk-compulsion-etching. There's that."

"The blood was blue or the alien was blue?"

"Both."

Edith shrugged with a small smile, walking over to a couple of glasses cases that had caught her eye when she'd first entered the office. Leaning down, she had to smile at the small tie-clip camera that sat mounted within the smallest box. "Bob used to say all my stories were what got you into all that trouble. Julie was really the one who encouraged you. All those history books. You could never get enough." In the next box was a very familiar wristwatch.

"You had me inherit everything."

"Figured you'd like the collectibles." She tapped the glass box. "Howard gave me that after Reinhardt."

The room was quiet for a few minutes. Edith knew. She could feel the tension growing. Phil always was someone who stewed quietly before engaging. So, she waited. She stared at the familiar pieces of history: the walkie-talkie wristwatch, the necklace tracker, the retractable knife boot. After her stint with Reinhardt, Howard had overcorrected. Started making all kinds of things so that it would never happen again. It was the only way he knew how to "fix" the problem, especially since he couldn't actually "fix" the problem.

"Somebody lookin' out for you Phil? Does anyone know? About the sleepwalk-compulsion-etching stuff?"

"May knows."

"Good."

"He's not going to hate you. I don't think he can."

Edith sighed. For a moment, she felt very small. The little boy she'd once taken to school was now Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. And he was counseling her on the very man he so idolized. After a moment, she turned and held her nephew's eyes. "Steve's just a man. A strong man and a kind one, but a man nonetheless. A man that I abandoned. He's gonna hate me for it. And that's okay." Patting the top of the nearest case, she moved toward the desk where Phil had moved to stand. "He has every right to hate me. So do you. But I don't regret what I did."

Phil nodded. "You have to live by your decisions. We all do."

"We all do."


	5. Chapter 5

**1944**

"You're shitting me."

"Language, doll. Language." Howard grinned. "I thought you Virginian girls were more straight-laced." Edith stared at where he jauntily pulled himself up into the plane, disappearing inside the hull. Despite having only known the man for a few days, she could see that there would be no talking him out of his horrendously stupid idea. Most Joes would take 'no' with the kind of stare she'd given him in the camp, but not Howard Stark. "C'mon in, sweetheart. I'm getting gray hair in here."

Angling into the plane from the hatch, she caught sight of his khaki slacks in the shadows. "I'm not doing this. I'll kick up my heels in London next. Why should I go with you on whatever escapade this is?"

"London's no vacation, Betsy."

Edith jerked her head back when he tossed something at her head. She grabbed it up, stepping back to let it unfurl. A pair of coveralls. Despite herself, she shivered, goosebumps racing up her bare legs. Growling in frustration at her own incredibly stupid need to know, Edith rounded the drop stairs and climbed up into the plane. If she happened to stomp her way up those steps, well then, she was a mature woman. With a temper.

"Stark."

"How many times— Howard, sweetheart. Just Howard." He turned around in the cockpit, grimacing at her. For a moment, she thought it was because she'd ignored his request again, but then she saw where he was looking. "That hurt?"

Glancing down at the angry red welt on her knee, Edith shrugged and sat down heavily into one of the side benches. "No. I'm used to it. I'm just glad I was able to grab Betty in time." Holding up the coveralls, she distracted him from the injury. (Though, in her mind, she wondered at Stark's concern. It didn't really seem to be his style.) "Mrs. Castlefeld will lose her marbles, and her jacks too, if she catches me in this get-up. She already thinks I'm some sort of harlot."

He scoffed, turning back to the instruments. "That woman is a witch. Put those on. You'll be more comfortable."

Edith glanced at the coveralls again before kicking off her bright red heels and yanking the pantyhose down from her waist. Despite his rumored reputation— and boy, did he have a reputation—Stark kept his attention on the cockpit console. Not once did he glance back.

She'd asked the other girls about him. Passing it off as a happenstance curious mention looking at the most recent newspaper to the camp. HOWARD STARK DOES IT AGAIN. And the line underneath touted a flying car that had been showcased a year before. This time, a new model and a longer flight time. The girls said he'd slept with half the women in Hollywood, and more than that around the country. A veritable Tomcat with genius and gender on his side.

She was nothing if not honest with herself.

She was curious. He'd caught her. There was no getting out of it now.

"You said you wanted me to come along. Why? I'm not an Ace and I'm certainly not supposed to be here." Howard scoffed. Only three days of knowing the fella and she'd recognize the humor in that muttered 'ha!' The tiniest bit amused, Edith matched his scoff. "Fill a filly in, fella." She pulled the legs of the coveralls over her legs, wincing just a bit when the rough fabric caught on her scraped knee. The clotting ripped off and she could see a trail of blood cutting through the fabric as her knee tracked down.

"It's not just you that's not supposed to be here, sweetheart. We're stealing this thing. Why'd'ya think I'm hotwiring it?"

Jerking the coveralls around her hips, she cinched the waist with the arms and tied it off, pushing her feet into the boots sitting conspicuously by the door that looked too close to her size to be a coincidence. Then, Edith trapezed herself toward the cockpit, kneeling in the doorway to watch him fiddle with the wires. Outside, darkness continued to fall.

"Once hotwired Old West's pick-up."

"You're a real dime. Hand me that." She grabbed the screwdriver and handed it to him. "Any other bits of a criminal record I need to know?"

Edith smirked and clambered into the cockpit. Howard didn't even glance up from what he was doing and she actively ignored the impropriety of her actions. What did it matter anyway? This was a warzone and she didn't feel the same sort of anxiety around him that she did other Joes.

"Couple fights."

"No arrest record though?"

"Nah. Despite my upbringing, I'm clean as a whistle."

"Well, that's changing tonight. We're heading into enemy territory, sweetheart."

A thrill of fear broke through Edith's curiosity. "Why?"

Howard stopped, turning to her. "That's not the right question."

"Seems like a pretty good question to me." Distinctly not wanting to look him in the eyes, which were analyzing her at a deeper level than she anticipated, Edith sucked in her bottom lip and reached down to a box at the feet of the co-pilot seat. Sifting through the box, she found a variety of random bits and baubles.

"The right question is: are you crazy?"

"Figure you gotta have a reason. Why waste time with a question like that?" She pulled a small figurine and sat it on the dash of the plane, staring at the small elephant while it nodded. "I hated that picture." Settling in the seat, Edith turned to Howard once more. For some reason, she could hear her mother's voice in her head— from so long ago— a bless his heart came from the depths of her memory. "So, why?"

"Helping a... friend."

Nodding, Edith looked out of the window toward the empty would-be tarmac. Really, it was just an extended patch of level grass. In a warzone, you took what you could get.

"Why're you just accepting this?"

"You needed me here for some reason. Either you're gonna tell me or you're not gonna tell me. But I'm here. And after hearing something like that, I ain't gonna leave either. So," Edith turned and stared at him, "what's need-to-know here?"

After a moment, she could feel something shift. Just like something shifted when she was in that tent with the genius a few days before. Despite the bravado, Edith knew— from experience and perception— that Howard Stark was barely holding it together. And, as she watched, that shield of bravado began to crumple until his expression was almost, almost vulnerable. She had to wonder if it was because she was still nameless, though he called her by name, or because she was very much not permeant.

Then, he smiled.

"Good."

He went right back to hot-wiring like nothing had happened.

Then, it struck her.

"Is this a test?"

The engines kicked on and the propellers began to whirl. The smirk on his face was answer enough.

Not five minutes later, Edith felt a violent flash of shock hit her as she stared at the sheepish look on the newly arrived passenger's face. A woman fell into the seat across from him, but Edith paid her no mind. Instead, she focused on Steven Grant Rogers and his wide baby blues.

"You're kidding."

He grimaced, looking very much like the kid with his hand in the cookie jar. "Not kidding."

"You two know each other?"

"Well, now it's a party."

Edith shot Howard a look, angling herself in the cockpit until she could see Steve more clearly in the dim light. They were keeping the lights near-off until they were in the air, and even then, as low as they could manage to avoid detection. He was wearing his costume, but a more battle-ready version of it.

Suddenly, late night discussions of a skinny kid from Brooklyn's hypothetical experimentation into a weapon of war made a whole lot more sense. Edith's eyes fell on the shield, a prop from the show.

"Mrs. Castlefeld's gonna kill you for taking that."

Steve grinned, glancing at it. His large shoulders shrugged.

"Tell me we're not dropping you in Austria."

"You're dropping me in Austria." He smiled a bit guiltily, glancing to the uniformed woman across from where he'd sat down. "Figured you would figure it out. Never been all that good at lying." Edith tried very hard not to scowl at that innocent expression. She'd seen it once or twice before, after he'd returned backstage after beating the ass of some Joes who got too handsy with the girls. "Uh, Agent Carter, this is…"

Seeing the big guy's awkward gesture and obvious flush, even in the darkness, Edith swung in to save him. Reaching back to offer her hand, she smirked with good humor. The other woman returned the gesture, grip firm. Her attention flashed minutely to where Edith's hand balanced on Howard's shoulder.

"Edith Sawyer."

"Peggy Carter." She glanced to Howard's back again. "One of yours, Howard?"

"Not his."

"One of mine, Agent Carter." Withdrawing back into the cockpit, Edith gave Howard a stern look. He winked. "She's joining SSR. Officially, as my assistant. Unofficially, as a science—"

"I don't believe Colonel Phillips will allow that."

Stark scoffed, pulling the throttle back. It wasn't until the plane was just lifting from the ground that Edith heard him mutter, "I'd like to see him stop me." She sat forward to the edge of the seat, looking down at the Earth as it fell away below, disappearing beneath a blanket of thick gray clouds. "I meant it, you know. You got a real mind for it."

Scoffing, Edith sat back and rolled her head to stare at his profile.

"Mind for it? I'm a brick, remember?"

"Never said it was gonna be easy. You're gonna learn on the fly and you're gonna learn to fly and you're not gonna like when you screw it up. But a good engineer…A real good engineer doesn't have to be a genius. They gotta be willing to look at things and not know and then want to know. Gotta ask the right questions. Be good for trying."

Howard angled the plane higher, eyes forward. Edith swallowed back her initial knee-jerk reaction, which was to tell him where to shove it. For some reason though, she bit the inside of her cheek and swallowed her 'no.' Instead, she angled to look back at Steve and Agent Carter.

"— between these two mountain ranges, there's a factory of some kind."

"Should be able to drop you on their doorstep," Howard supplied. Edith didn't bother withdrawing when he leaned closer to make his voice clear. While the action didn't go unmissed by the agent, she quickly drew her attention back to Steve. The agent was already making assumptions. She'd been around enough assumptions to know.

"Just get me as close as you can." He was securing the harness of his parachute, eyeing the woman across from him. "You three sure are gonna be in a lot of trouble when you land."

"And you won't?"

Edith turned back to face forward, staring out at the passing clouds. Anxiety tore through her stomach at the very real danger. It felt familiar, though she'd never been in a warzone.

The same sort of terrible euphoric fear that ate at her every Saturday night on her walk back home from Old West's along that dirt road. On some nights, she felt watched. On others, she darted to hide behind trees as cars passed by. Like she was being hunted. The same sort of adrenaline pumped in her veins.

"Agent Carter, if we're not in too much of a hurry, I thought we could stop off at Lucerne for a late-night fondue."

Despite the obvious flirtation, Edith ignored Howard's invitation to the agent. As much as that might've irritated her back at the dance hall or on one of the girls, she didn't feel a bit of annoyance with him. Not to mention, the gentle glide of the plane between the clouds had her stomach knotting.

"We've entered enemy airspace, sweetheart. Fasten your seatbelt."

Edith glanced over to him, taking in his nod. It seemed a bit reassuring, like he had every confidence he could get them back out again with no real problems. Still, Edith edged back and slid her arms into the belts, fastening the buckle over her waist. "Are we over Austria?"

"What's left of it."

"You sure this thing works?" Steve called up from the back. Edith glanced back to see him holding up what looked to be a hand-held device.

"Tested more than you, pal."

Her head snapped forward to hit Howard's shoulder and she turned quickly, bracing herself as the plane rocked and a loud explosion echoed through the metal. "Shit!" The plane swung this way and that and Edith could feel her stomach floating to her sternum. Despite her urge to shout, Edith swallowed the instinct down and braced a bit more strongly, shoulders and arms tensing.

"Don't do that. Don't do that. Let go. Relax. We get hit and you're like that you can snap your bones. Relax." The plane swung to the right and Edith swallowed a deep breath, blinking the explosions in her eyes away. Deftly, he swung between the explosions. Her father used to say it when she was younger, learning to throw a punch for the first time.

Bob and weave.

"He's off. Get us out of here."

He— Edith jolted as another explosion made the plane bob upward as she turned in her seat. "Steve-?"

Agent Carter held her gaze for a moment before blinking and looking out at the explosion-ridden night. "He's on his own now."

Heart-racing, Edith tried to look down into the dark forest below, lit only by the midair explosions. Steve, sweet and stubborn Steve, was down in the middle of a warzone. Exactly where he wanted to be. Lord only knew if he would make it back. The explosions were growing fewer and farther between until they ceased entirely. And Steve— good old Steve— the guy who shoved guys into dumpsters that laid hands on the girls, the guy who kept quiet when people talked about home on the tour bus, the guy who could always be counted on to be a solid Joe— was in the middle of a warzone. Alone.

"Why?"

"Why what, sweetheart?"

"Why did you drag me up here?"

"Figured you'd see something from up here that might convince you."

Edith looked at him. Howard Stark wasn't someone for riddles or guesswork.

"Figured once you saw the war up close….But, hey, it's up to you if you wanna keep kickin' up your heels for Uncle Sam and twenty-cent Mickeys."

Heart racing as realization hit her how close those explosions had been, at how Steve had jumped out to meet them, Edith squared her shoulders to face him, bracing on the seat and the front panel. "That SSR thing? You were serious."

"I am serious."

Edith could sense that Agent Carter was listening. Too many years spent listening out in loud dance halls made her sixth sense for eavesdropping keener. Always had to know what speak was up and what fellas to avoid. Which ones were too handsy, which ones were a few cards shy. She got to learn how to read people in those halls, on the parquet floors. And she could read Howard Stark.

He was earnest. Arrogant, a know-it-all. So incredibly smart that it was baffling. But earnest.

"Look, I don't like Phillips choosing for me. And you got potential. Kickin' up your heels, I respect it. But you can make an impact. A real one. One that could save—"

"I'll do it."

"— lives. What?"

"I'll do it."

* * *

Edith was never a crier. She held the other girls while they cried, dabbing hankerchiefs to their cheeks and eyes while they weeped their goodbyes. They were leaving for London with their sets and costumes and sequines. Edith stood there in her old, worn boots and jacket, the same coveralls and a borrowed blouse tucked in at the waist. Mrs. Castlefeld sent her a scathing look that very clearly condemned her to fire and brimstone. Edith merely waved at the old woman, sweetly wiggling her fingers. The woman dodged into the plane and Edith turned back to the gathered girls.

Ava- bless Ava May-was trying her best to keep the peace. Her strong lithe arms wrapped around Edith like a vice, holding her close and tight. "We're gonna miss you, Powderpuff. No one could handle Castlefeld like you could." She stepped away, holding to Edith's shoulders. The girls were sniffling and Edith felt hands on her back. "If you're ever around my way, give me a shout."

The girls left, waving as each one entered the plane. Edith watched them all go from the shelter of a tent, hands on her hips. She waved as the plane took off, bound for the relative safety of London.

Turning, Edith made her way through the camp- entering the treeline that hid most of the operations. Mist seemed to hang low in the forest, lingering just above the forest floor into the distance, where the brush and canopy faded into a dull gray.

"He's taking quite a risk for you."

She didn't hear any judgement in the woman's voice and, for that much, Edith had to give her credit. Agent Carter fell into step with her, heels picking around the damp mulch with just as much surety as Edith's boots. It'd been a little more than a day since they'd dropped Steve in Austria, with no signal. She wondered how long they would give him before writing him off as killed or missing.

"He's a gambler."

"Funny thing is- he's not. Howard doesn't take risks without calculation. And he assures me, you are not one of his more risque forms of entertainment."

Edith scoffed, stopping under a particularly large pine. She turned to face the agent. "I thought about prostitution once. When things got hard. There was a brothel in town. Wasn't for me, so I took up taxi dancin'." Edith enjoyed the slightest widening of the woman's eyes before the strangest glint of respect entered them. "Frankly, I don't know what Stark sees in me. It kinda seems like it might be more than what I see in myself."

That was the short of it. Stark saw something. She wasn't sure what it was exactly. He was never clear in describing what it was. But he seemed to believe in it enough to fight for her presence. And he didn't seem like the kind of man to waste effort.

"As long as I'm here, Agent Carter, I'll do the work. Men and women are losing their lives here. If I can stop that somehow or help someone stop that somehow, then I'll do whatever I can to make that happen. If anything, I ain't afraid of work."

The woman's chin rose before she finally allowed the smallest smile onto her painted lips. She held her hand out and waited. "Please, call me Peggy."

"Edith." She shook the offered hand.

Peggy raised a brow and quirked her lips, nodding her head toward the Stark corner of camp. "I believe Howard sees you as something of a new toy at the moment." Her tone was joking, but there was likely some truth to that statement. Edith certainly wasn't a fool.

"I've told him several times that I'm a brick."

"A brick?"

"An object that won't actively talk back when he's genius-reasoning through something." Edith waved her hand and entered Howard's second tent, which housed the blueprints and schematics for the large German tank. "But then he gives me something like this and tells me to 'figure it out, doll face.'"

Walking to stand in front of the whiteboard, Edith crossed her arms and stared at the drawn lines and weight distributions. Turning, she raised a brow at Peggy's nonplussed expression. Her neatly arched brows pulled together in confusion as she stepped further inside.

"He has you working on this?"

"Says if I can figure out a way to take it down, I can have a gold star."

Peggy looked between Edith, who tapped the board with a knuckle, and the schematics. "This killed hundreds of men weeks ago. We couldn't-"

"I know. We're gonna destroy it. We'll send this Cerberus back to hell, where it belongs."


End file.
